


Mercury

by kvassus



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Djinni & Genies, F/F, Hallucinogens, Personal Growth, Slow Burn, Telepathy, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:55:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24882661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kvassus/pseuds/kvassus
Summary: Yennefer is of the qualified opinion that destiny can absolutely go fuck itself, not quite realizing that her destiny comes in the shape of a certain sorceress with blue eyes, a will of steel, and a frustrating plethora of patience.All it takes is a djinn, and a wish.
Relationships: Tissaia de Vries/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 164
Kudos: 281





	1. I Am Dissonance

**Author's Note:**

> This is first my work here, and my first time writing in a very long time, it was supposed to be three chapters and has now turned into a beast I cannot control - save me. 
> 
> I am trying to familiarize myself with the lore, but considering the complexity of the world and the conflicting information there may be some canon or lore non-compliance, but I hope you enjoy this regardless!

“ - And now you lie to me?” The rectoress’ eyes shine with ice, and Yennefer can do nothing but simmer in her shame beneath them. Her palms sting as she clenches her hands, it cannot cover the sting of heat in her eyes she is desperately trying to chase away. Try as she might, she cannot escape the utter coolness of Tissaia’s stare. 

Her skin prickles, is this what she is to be all her life? A failure, a walking example of the cruelty of nature, and the cruelty of man. 

The thought drops into her stomach with the weight of lead. 

A twisted girl, alone in her hovel on her deathbed surrounded by nothing but bitterness and dust. Or maybe she will meet her end here, in Aretuza, a subject to some sick experiment of the institution – no more sentient than the daisies meant to wither and die. 

But the Rectoress is not done with her yet. 

“Your own fear makes such sense.” The words echo in her head as they are falling from thin, impassive lips. “Even if you were a beauty, still, no one could love you.” 

A chill spread where it had stung. 

Yennefer can no longer stare back, looking past instead at the stone wall behind and focusing instead on the pressure of her curved jaw. Unable to look directly into the face of the woman that has said aloud the very thing Yennefer had never found words for. The knowledge that the woman had been so easily able to delve in Yennefer’s mind and uncover the worst of her sparked a blinding anger. Her palms are clammy, with sweat or blood she did not know. She needs to leave. 

She does the only thing she is good at it; she runs away. Away from the burning eyes that had pierced her mind and condemned her. 

\--- 

The revelation still feels fresh a week later, and each hope for a home, for a family – a hope she has only dared entertain in the privacy of her mind now feels like a dirty secret brought to light. To belong was not made for a hunchback and a freak, and the very thought that the unphased and unkind Rectoress of Aretuza has witnessed her deepest desires and had laid them out with such coldness and statement of fact as if merely commenting on the weather had left Yennefer shaken and exposed. 

She is sitting across from Anica once more, kind-hearted and reassuring as ever. But Yennefer felt each kindly smile as an underhanded stab of pity, and it further brewed her shame. 

Yennefer’s neck prickles. 

She looked around to find a source for her discomfort, but maybe it’s just what being in this hell hole does after a while, makes you believe in monsters behind every corner. 

As if Yennefer needed more reminders of monsters in her world. 

She chances a glance up but Tissaia was not looking at her, looking comfortable in her decidedly uncomfortable-looking, stiffly woven green gown, Yennefer watched the rectoress’ hands as they fixed the cuffs of her sleeves, smoothing out some wrinkles Yennefer couldn’t see. 

Those hands stilled, blue eyes met violet and she broke away, turning back to a concerned Anica, chasing down the knot in her throat. 

The lesson went about as expected, Yennefer has found mind reading as difficult as any other task she has had to perform. And the thought of it burned her, she ground her teeth and glared at the girl across from her as if she had wronged her, as if the only thing responsible for her own incompetence was anyone but Yennefer herself. 

“You can do this.” Anica murmurs, that girl and her optimism. 

Had this been another time, another place, maybe Yennefer could have grown up with a friend like Anica. Maybe that life could have turned her kinder, less pessimistic. 

But fate has seen fit to put her in a pigsty. 

“Fringilla is afraid of failure.” Yennefer startles from her thoughts, turning to Sabrina beside her. 

Sabrina looked to Tissaia, who looked far less severe as she sat on the chair, book in hand, her thin lips have a slight upturn as she appraises the blonde. The sight brings with it feelings Yennefer cannot decipher, she fists her hands. If she can just forget Sabrina, forget that she is a failing student in Aretuza, the cold, stone floor making her back go numb and the ache in her hunched shoulder grow fiercer, she can imagine for a second that the Rectoress’ look of approval comes past the blonde sitting primly on the floor and is instead directed at her. 

How can someone sit so primly on these tiles anyway? 

The phantom warmth of approval stings harsher than expected, what would she do even if she had the approval of the Rectoress? 

With a blink the fantasy was gone. 

“Finally, some measure of talent” Tissaia spoke, measured and calm despite the bite of her words, she sat up and set the book flat down beside her on the cushion. Sabrina smiles, and Yennefer hates her, she looks back to Tissaia who is now looking at her, she shifts in her spot at the stiffness in her spine. 

It seems she has caught Tissaia’s attention, who’s eyes barely glanced her way before the Rectoress stood. “Does the success of your sisters upset you, piglet?” 

Yennefer breathes out but does not look up to the Rectoress, she bites her lip and focuses on the sting to center her. But now there is a pressure in her head, creeping down her neck, behind her nose, and it was distracting and decidedly uncomfortable. 

A part of her panics momentarily, and as if heeding the flash of anxiety and chaos the pressure retreats, only to return a moment later. A deep green skirt of silk flows into view, it forces Yennefer to look up and Tissaia’s imperious stare, the Rectoress stands tall above her, straight-backed and righteous and with a tilt to her head that bares better resemblance to studying a rare herbal specimen than a person. 

The pressure returns with a renewed vigor but also a masterful touch, it feels harnessed, sweeping in precise strokes and Yennefer has to suppress a shiver. The pressure feels so familiar it takes her only a moment to piece it together. 

“Get out of my head.” Yennefer whispers, her molars grind and she ignores the cramping in the curve of her mandible. 

“You think too loud.” 

Yennefer glares at the woman, her chest tight with anger and indignation, the candles raised around the room flicker, pages of books rustle in agitation. But Tissaia does not blink, that same unphased stare of ice piercing her in place pinning the mentor and student as chaos swells in the room with a silent boom. 

There are gasps and a stammer of panicked feet, a crash of something that in Yennefer’s rotten luck is probably fragile, she does not care. With every second of this staring match the angry heat in her chest threatens to spill over, and for once in her life Yennefer does not feel a victim but the menace, there is a control there that she clings to, allows it to embrace her in return. 

Tissaia’s face is an unreadable expression, but there is a flush and a bright glint to her eyes that Yennefer only feeds on, daring the chaos that swims so closely to the surface of the sorceress’ skin to come out. 

“You are pure chaos, piglet.” 

Another tremor, the candles go out simultaneously as if the flame itself has been sucked from the farthest reaches of the room and into the invisible vortex in her chest. 

“Stop calling me that!” A door shuts with a bang, and Tissaia’s expression finally cracks with a wince, eyebrows furrowing deeply. 

For once, Tissaia de Vries is the first to look away. 

Yennefer realizes suddenly that she is standing, dazed and trembling, and as she looks around the room in dismay, she realizes the mess she has caused. She struggles to piece together the pieces of the past moments, the other girls were standing a far distance away, huddled together and uncertain, Yennefer bites her lip and winces, her hands unclench and her wrists ache at the tender lines there. 

“Thank you, Yennefer, for such an apt demonstration.” The rectoress eyes her, and she hunches into herself, all fight gone. 

Tissaia looks to the other girls, “Chaos in the wrong hands is unpredictable and dangerous.” She makes her way through the room slowly, barely glancing at the mess she steps over or the girl that caused it. 

“The only way to wield it, is to make order out of chaos.” 

She stops in front of the uncertain girls, Sabrina stood at the front, Fringilla behind her, Anica was to the side and Yennefer can feel her glances of reproach, she tastes sour in her mouth. 

“Who here has what it takes?” The girls shuffle but say nothing, Yennefer is back to staring at the floor. 

She hears what might be Tissaia smoothing her gown, despite there never being a hair out of place, and she is back to her usual stoic self, with a tut of what she imagines is disappointment - “You may go.” 

And the girls are scrambling out of the room. 

Yennefer waits for them all to leave, turning to watch Anica wave at her discreetly, a hesitant curl of the hand by her hip, Sabrina breezing out of the room with what is almost righteous indignation, she ignores them all, watching Tissaia. A nervous thrill passes through her when she sees something pass on the face that often shows nothing. 

It is gone quickly and without a blink Tissaia turns away and leaves, stark sound of heels following her out of the room, one hand pauses on the door and Yennefer subconsciously straightens up as pins her with a look back. 

“Clean up.” 

And with that, Yennefer is alone. 

\---- 

The incident in Tower of the Gull reinforces Yennefer’s determination to master her chaos, she has tasted power for the first time, and Tissaia’s challenge rang clear in her head. 

She will do better. 

That thought drove her to Tissaia’s office, knocking on the red door of oak and sweeping into the room as soon as she heard the Rectoress bid her to enter. 

Tissaia sat at her desk with not even a glance in her direction, quill scratching on parchment smoothly. The desk held a grimoire, papers, letters. The office itself had lavish boxes, delicate instruments that Yennefer could not hope to name and some that made her uneasy. 

The scratching of the pen doesn’t stop, but she hears, “Is my office to your approval?” Yennefer tries to calm her wild heart, then remembers why she is here in the first place, she grasps for the tendrils of bravery that brought her here. “I can’t do thought transference.” 

“Obviously.” Was the dry response to that, she scowls. 

“I need help.” She says it quietly, the old sorceress remains focused on whatever letter she is writing, 

“And what do you want? A tutor? My time is too precious to spend it in the afterhours with a piglet too preoccupied rolling in her own misery.” 

Yennefer gnarled her teeth at that, if she has come here for a pick me up she is in the wrong place, but she knew that. She has Istredd for petty comforts, this was about more than that. 

The thought gave her confidence that she undoubtedly knew was misplaced, but she grabbed onto it with both hands and wrung it for what’s worth, “Oh? Is your precious time better spent on wiping royal asses and bending over for the Chapter?” 

The moment she said it, she hopes to all the gods that the stern woman in front of her has suffered a sudden stroke of deafness. But she hears it, of course she does. 

The quill stills. 

For one, icy moment, nothing happens, and Yennefer approaches the desk as if she is possessed, and continues digging her grave, if she dies now it won’t be because she didn’t commit, “Or maybe, maybe teaching this is just beyond your scope.” 

And Tissaia had went through all the trouble of keeping Yennefer alive before, she wouldn’t let it go to waste. 

Right? 

Yennefer can swear she sees the corners of Tissaia’s lips twitch up as she stares her down, but her face is impassive still. The ever-collected Rectoress doesn’t seem to want to dignify that goad with a response. Until, 

“Silly girl.” 

Okay, that was a new one. Hunching over slightly with a breathlessness only suitable for a near death experience, Yennefer wasn’t sure if she should be indignant at the taunt – at least she has upgraded from the pigsty, and at least she was still alive and not a charred spot on the floor. 

“You take an awful lot of pleasure in your insubordination, skulking around Aretuza at night, lying to me, insulting even. The only reason I can think of for your attempts to rile me.” 

She meets Tissaia’s eyes from where they dropped, and for once finds no ice in them, despite all the words pouring from pursed lips. 

“You are unpredictable and dangerous.” 

Just as Yennefer readies to defend herself, Tissaia raises her hand, effectively silencing her. 

“But you also have a gift. A gift you will squander away if you continue succumbing to the volatility of the chaos in your blood.” Her eyes fell back onto the desk, to a candle there. “And in your heart.” 

Yennefer is lost, deflated, but watching the rectoress with curiosity – this has been the most civility she has ever received from her teacher, and it is quite off-putting, a part of her will not give this without a fight, but all she does is stare mutely at her. 

“In my blood.” A chill runs through her curved spine, she stops the urge to hug herself and chase the goosebumps away. 

“Have you gotten that from rummaging in my mind too?” Yennefer spits out, miffed both at the intrusion and that not even that horror-fueling word vomit that had come out of her mouth moments before has done anything to unphase Tissaia de Vries. 

“No, but I suspected.” 

Yennefer scoffs, "I guess anyone with eyes can't miss the foul mark of my blood." The venom in her own voice would surprise her had she not been struggling to keep down the wave of shame that fuels it. 

Tissaia tilts her head thoughtfully, hands clasping together. "It is not your blood that curved your spine." Yennefer feels her heart slow to a deathly crawl, her mouth opens wordlessly. 

The rectoress leans and says slowly, and Yennefer thinks there is something gentle in the way she speaks then.

"It is a bone disease, it may have been in your parents' blood yes, but it is not the part that makes you quarter-elf." 

Yennefer sits in the silence winded, and Tissaia seems content to wait for her to find her words. 

She cannot keep the desperate crack of her voice, “You can’t tell anyone.” 

Yennefer cannot read Tissaia’s expression, but somehow, she knows there is no malice there as the Rectoress looks at her levelly, her voice is firm but the quietest Yennefer has ever heard it. 

“I promise.” 

Tissaia waves her hand to another chair that sits across from the desk and Yennefer sits down, all fight gone. 

“The elven blood in your veins allows you a stronger affinity to chaos, but this bond is reciprocal. And so, if you do not control it, it will control you.” 

And even though Yennefer still reels from the knowledge that her real father didn't curse her with her affliction that sentenced her to a life of misery, she found the strength to sit up, if only to not seem an airhead to the woman in front of her.

Maybe her father's blood will help her be good at something.

It seems Tissaia read her renewed attention as readiness. 

“Thought transference is a manifestation of chaos, it is above all else, an ability to see chaos that surrounds us, as each magic user bears a mark of it we can use chaos to see within. So far, you have demonstrated an absolute incompetence at seeing others, you are too preoccupied hiding within yourself.” 

Yennefer’s eyes shoot to the cold stone floor between her feet as she grinds her molars in silence. 

Tissaia looks at her, says flatly, “Doralis has her doll, and you have your pain – and both of you will fail unless you let those comforts go.” 

“My misery is no comfort to me” Yennefer finally bites out. 

Tissaia sits back, tilts her chin up. 

“And yet you cling to it.” Tissaia stands up with a chair scraping back, making her look up, the rectoress her hands together in front of her and pins her with her stare, Yennefer shifts in her seat. “We have the ability to reshape our world as we live it, mold kingdoms, shape dynasties – we have complete control over our lives – a rare few who do.” 

Yennefer’s eyes do not follow her; but she feels keenly the presence of the woman as the rectoress gathers her skirt and steps away from the desk, walking around the room slowly. 

“Instead, you give away that very control to all those who wronged you – you give it to me every time you lash out whenever your precious feelings get hurt. It is unacceptable.” By the end, Tissaia was back on her side of the desk, and Yennefer was sharp and defensive and feeling utterly exposed. 

Again, she finds nothing to say. 

“Control your chaos.” 

She tucks her chin closer to her chest and whispers, “I can’t do it.” 

Saying the words aloud stung as sharp as defeat. 

She startles with an sharp inhale as her chin is forced up by a warm, soft hand, so unlike their owner, violet eyes meet a calm ocean of blue. “You can.” 

Yennefer swallows, eyes fluttering shut for a second as she let the words seep through her skin, it was alien to her – the complete conviction of the older sorceress that sees something in a cowering, angry girl with a twisted spine and an overflowing bottle of defiance. What can one say to that? 

The hand under her chin disappeared, her skin burns at the remnants of unfamiliar touch. 

“What do I do?” 

“Look at me.” After a pause, Yennefer looks up again. 

Very obviously not in her element she cannot spend more than a few seconds in the uncomfortable silence with Tissaia watching her and trying to match her gaze, it feels hopeless, and anger feels safer than helplessness. 

“Do you have no spells for those wrinkles?” 

Tissaia rolls her eyes, “Focus, piglet.” Ah there’s that name again, it doesn’t sting as much anymore. 

“Look beyond.” 

She digs her fingers into the armchair until they ache, but she meets the Rectoress’ gaze finally. Nothing happens for a while, and she cannot stay still on the chair, she wilts into it. “I can’t do it.” 

She isn’t worth four marks. 

Tissaia scoffs, “Why have you come here to waste my time if that is all the effort you are willing to put in?” 

The Rectoress all but glides back into her seat, regarding Yennefer with narrowing eyes, “Sit up, piglet, we’re not in a barn.” 

Yennefer sits up slightly despite the pressure of her raised shoulder, chagrined. 

“Your fear is keeping you from trying in the first place.” 

“I am not afraid of you.” An eyebrow ticks up. 

“I suspect nothing I can ever do can match whatever punishment you bring on yourself.” 

The silence stretches for what feels like a decade. It is broken by Tissaia. 

“Again.” 

She brings her hands together, tensing them to stop the shaking, violet eyes find blue, hesitantly, like probing at a dark pool of water, testing its depths. 

Just as she was about to look away again, _You can._ Tissaia’s voice resounded in her head, she sounds as sure as if she has said that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. 

Tissaia looks down, arching an eyebrow in such a delicate way Yennefer wonders if all important people knew how to make the simplest gestures look regal. 

Suddenly, she feels a familiar pressure and it swells in her mind like an invisible tide, a part of her panics, but there is not much she can do but follow where it goes. She bucks against the pull, fighting the current like a newborn calf swept away by a river during the spring thaw. 

Despite her flailing, the tide took her. 

She sees her hand resting by the quill, but it is not her hand, this hand is pale and flawless and lacks the scars of the hundreds of nicks from pigs and chicken wire, there are no pink lines along her wrists, and she knows it’s smooth and scented with a chamomile lotion. She knows that quill was imported from Nazair from a merchant who always wear yellow silk sash and wears way too much cologne, she wrinkles her nose at the memory of the smell, the quill is lying at an angle over the letter, words of which she cannot make out, there is an incessant itch to lie the pen parallel, as it should be. 

Yennefer blinks, Tissaia is watching her, and although her face was still entirely unimpressed the skin around her eyes softens. 

“Must you fight me every step of the way?” 

“You’re in my head again.” The statement came out more accusing than Yennefer felt, she grapples with her thoughts, she didn’t even feel the Rectoress there. 

Tissaia sighs, “No,” As if it pains to her say something so obvious, “You were in mine.” 

Yennefer blinks again, mouth open, searching for a retort as she feels around for that pull, that current that she felt moments before. Curious instead of fearful now, knowing who it belongs to. 

As if sensing what she is trying to do, Tissaia tilts her chin up with a simple challenge. 

“I am there, find me.” 

Easy to say, hard to do when Yennefer’s mind and chaos are a whirlwind even she cannot keep up with. 

She didn’t get it that night, eventually the candles had been almost burnt out and the night was in the windows, and Yennefer begrudgingly stood up at Tissaia’s dismissal, “That’s enough for now.” 

She left back to her room. She did not sleep much that night, thinking of what it means to look beyond the only thing she’s ever known – her fears, her hopes (as blatantly misplaced as they are). 

But she is determined, and so Yennefer found herself again in Tissaia’s office, often with a racing heart and mild disbelief that she has not yet been chased out by a scathing retort from the Rectoress for wasting her time. 

No, Tissaia sat there, sometimes there are two cups filled with steaming tea waiting for them. She did not often say much, simply look at Yennefer so intensely she had to shift in her seat before she became accustomed to the gaze. 

Look beyond. 

Yennefer tries, she really does, she looks at Tissaia, tries to look within her, until a door became a window – whatever that meant. But she becomes distracted, first by the smooth, thin arch of her brow, then the wrinkle by her mouth, and then the dangerous cupid’s bow of her lip. Each time she must jolt herself internally, her hands would clench, and she would pray to any and all gods in existence the Rectoress does not choose to test her focus in those moments. 

Biting her lip, she looks back up to the sorceress, who was as still as ever, her face not betraying any expression as she relaxes back into her chair, her elbows resting at her sides on the chair arms. One hand was holding the pendant she always wore, her fingers traced the metal, Yennefer forces her eyes away and back at her eyes. 

Look beyond. 

The Rectoress’ desk had began to itch a curiosity inside Yennefer, every time she comes to her office, the items are exactly in the same place, sure an item might go missing, but nothing would replace it until it is back in its designated space. Tissaia, she belatedly realizes, is a woman of absolute order, it must be stifling. 

She wonders how frustrating it must be to have a student like her, seemingly everything Tissaia herself is not, she bites her lip again, holding her hands to her chest. 

She is growing frustrated, her eyebrows knit together, and she shuts her eyes for a moment in defeat. 

She hears shuffling in front of her, Tissaia is moving closer, Yennefer’s eyes fly open and she watches the Rectoress as she leans forward with her elbows on the desk, violet eyes meet blue again. How, how can this woman not betray a thought, no emotion, how can the sorceress be so cold and unfeeling – an absolute opposite of chaos she claims to possess. 

Yennefer glares back at her with a new energy, she feels wrung dry of all she has, but there is that familiar heat in her chest that threatens to spill over like water in a swinging bucket. 

Harnessing chaos felt much like wrangling a pig in the mud pen. She has a feeling the Rectoress would not appreciate the comparison. 

But it was easier for Yennefer to imagine it, because the only way to catch the fleeing suckling is not to dive head first, but to soothe it, lead it, trap it. 

Her shoulders drew back, the sloping side pulled uncomfortably at her neck, she allows the tightness in her chest to expand until she feels it from her fingertips to the very tip of her tongue. The pressure lessens as Yennefer expands until, she exhales sharply, and feels herself perforate through her skin. 

She doesn’t know when she closes her eyes, but she opens them with a new sense of purpose. 

Yennefer sees something, a phantom, an aura, an invisible wall that rippled so close to the Rectoress’ ever-watchful face, like an illusion spell or a rivulet of water, Yennefer grips the arms of her chair and they creak, she leans in. The ripples smooth out somewhat, she swallows and let's go of a shaky breath as she submerges. 

Tissaia beckons her in with that similar pull of the chaos that rushes in to link them, Yennefer can feel the Rectoress bending and twisting to control exactly how far in she can go, and what she can see. 

She sees herself, her always writhing crooked form that just can’t sit still for longer than a moment, her twisted jaw, her violet eyes almost hidden by the fringe of raven hair. Strangely enough, the image does not fill her with shame, and there is no loathing there, nor pity. Instead, her focus shifts to the cloud of chaos that surrounds her like rays of the sun, she has never seen anything like it. It is overwhelming to think that she exudes this much power, never to have seen it herself. 

Yennefer wants to reach forward, to touch it and prove that it real. 

Fingers twitch and she feels the muscles in her wrist. 

Her attempt is thwarted by a door shut in her face, she winces and opens her eyes, she hasn’t realized she had closed them. Despite the sudden stop, she could feel her cheeks stretch in a crooked smile and a start of a laugh that sounds more like a sob. 

Tissaia’s mind is meticulous, like a library to rival even Aretuza’s grandeur. 

Despite having tread too far in and being not so gently nudged out, it was fascinating, feeling the mind of another developed a sense of space in herself, she was where the Rectoress’ imposing presence was not. 

She sought the link of chaos again, and was met with the barrier, a point she could not push past. 

It was encompassing and vast, like the ocean that surrounded Thanedd, or the sky above it, and it was less the harshness of it that kept her away from testing its depth further, but that fear of looking into the deep, not knowing how far it stretches beyond her sight. Would she ever resurface again if she chanced a step too far? Not the first time, Yennefer wondered at the extent of the woman’s grip on the chaos, how powerful the sorceress in front of her is. 

She plays around with her newly discovered skill, testing Tissaia’s presence in the chaos like waves lapping at a cliff’s base. Poking, prodding, and being nudged back sharply when Tissaia’s mind deems her curiosity too insolent to tolerate. 

She felt mildly like a kitten playing with a deerhound’s tail, from the link, she can sense the older sorceress is not fond of the comparison. 

Yennefer smiles. 

“Are you quite finished your perusing.” Tissaia asks dryly, she was leaning against the back of her chair, one hand resting on an armchair, the other has paused it’s fiddling with the pendant at some point. 

“I feel you.” Her cheeks flared, but she is still smiling, “I feel your, your mind. It feels...different.” 

Tissaia’s cheek twitched, and Yennefer wanted to sink into her chair a little farther, but there was exhilaration too, she has done it. 

“Yes, I imagine it is not quite like what that boy showed you during your dalliances in Tor Lara.” Tissaia shot her a look at her mortification, her eyebrow raise, “Do you think I am not aware of what my students are doing while they are here?” The hand at the pendant resumed its tracing path with more demure, and Yennefer forced herself to look away from the hands back to the floor, face still flushed. 

"I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Do not play fool, and do not lie to me, have we not been over this before?” Tissaia pursed her lips, then, “I do not care about your dalliances, but be cautious, piglet. Everyone has a purpose and an agenda.” 

“He’s my friend.” Yennefer cannot help the bite to her words, her shoulders raise up like hackles. 

Tissaia raises an eyebrow, and Yennefer, although ready to defend Istredd, cannot quite meet her patronizing gaze. 

“Maybe so. But Stregobor is his Rector first.“ 

Yennefer braved to look up at the Rectoress, and after seemingly a long moment of contemplation, “Another lesson tonight, then, everyone has their place, everyone has their own goals, their own masters whom they serve. As mages we are put in a unique position to act in the interests of the Continent, to keep peace between kingdoms - to keep order.” 

“That requires a delicate approach, how do we keep Kings who are happy to drink and war from descending the Continent into a bloodbath at their every whim, how do we keep them to our counsel?” 

Yennefer, miraculously, stayed silent. 

“Get me something from the boy, something that he treasures – a secret he would not tell another soul had he any doubt of their intentions to be not in his interest.” 

“How?” 

“Use your brain, piglet. We maneuver kings simply enough – plant the seeds of our will in their garden and water till they bear fruit.” Tissaia fixes the quill to line across the paper, perfectly perpendicular, “When weeds and pests come, we eliminate them.” 

“Eliminate them?” 

“With an invisible hand. Discretion is vital to a sorceress.” 

“Manipulation, murder.” Yennefer tests out the words on her lips, and she sees Tissaia's expression tighten. 

“The way of this world. Our Continent the stage, all the men and women in it merely players. What is the life of a scheming nobleman compared to the lives of thousands that till his soil, that herd his cattle? The price of conflict is seldom on the direct party – most often on the more vulnerable, the ones who depend on his protection.” 

Yennefer scoffs, “Do you pretend you are some martyr? The Chapter some face of heroism for the downtrodden?” 

Tissaia eyes grow a sharper edge, “Save that sharp tongue for the boy, piglet. I will not tolerate it.” It took all Yennefer had to keep her lips sealed, her top lip curled up momentarily. 

The rectoress, in a sudden burst of generosity, does not mention it. 

“We have the responsibility to be the face of certainty to the common folk. The people that rely on our protection. Our choices, whether in direct action or in the refusal to act; both, can spell the outcome of their very lives.” 

Yennefer is suddenly forced to relive the memory of a stern sorceress with eyes of ice fishing her out a pig pen, sold for next to nothing. Where would she be now had Tissaia decided not to bother with the beast of a girl? 

“Is that sentiment I hear? Surely you did not just pick me out of the pig pen because you felt responsible for a poor soul destiny fucked over.” 

Tissaia did not grace her with neither a reply nor reprimand, merely sat back in her chair, all poise in her countenance, and fixed her a with a look. 

It was as if the Rectoress wanted Yennefer’s words to echo in the room, and the longer they stay in silence the more Yennefer begins to recognize an uncomfortable weight on her chest has returned, it hugs her with all the discomfort of a tick embedding into the skin. 

Yennefer sighs and focuses back on the floor, away from the always too piercing eyes, the fire in her gut sputters and dims. 

It is a very Tissaia way, Yennefer realizes, to weather her storms with a resolute silence. 

To reprimand without a word. The action of inaction. 

Yennefer sits up, lifting her head and looking to the Rectoress, the contemplating blue eyes. 

It seems the Rectoress is back to the subject. 

“I expect a token of the boy’s to be in my office within a fortnight.” 

Yennefer swallows, and as she shakily moves to leave in her lilted shuffle Tissaia’s voice halts her in her tracks, 

“Well done, Yennefer.” 

She blinks, and although the words were neutral at best, a warmth spreads to her face and she nods quietly, leaving the office with a little more energy to her step. 

When she arrives before fortnight with the flower, Tissaia continues to call her by her name, agrees to let her ascend, tolerates Yennefer’s questions without malice, no matter how much Yennefer’s temper flares, always, Tissaia is there to outlast her fire. 

Slowly, Yennefer’s heart begins to thaw, and as Tissaia’s stern instruction continues, Yennefer begins to feel a sense of purpose, she begins to imagine a future of grand balls and silk sheets and strings at her fingers that she can pull to nudge the world into her palms and cradle it, mold it, to take back everything the Continent has ever taken from her by virtue of her birth. To be loved and feared and valued. 

A better life, a blissful hope. 


	2. Warm Wine and Forbidden Rooms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yennefer is young and reckless, we've all been there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm over the moon at the response to the first chapter, thank you all for taking the time out of your day to leave a comment or a kudos! I hope you continue to enjoy these two stubborn asses.
> 
> As a side note, we never really learn how long exactly Yennefer stays in Aretuza, but I am shaping this story under the assumption that it took her years to learn all she needs to learn before she ascended.

A pattern begins to form, it continues even after Yennefer is chosen for ascension, with Anica gone, half their initiation group deemed unworthy to ascend. 

She felt the absence of the others as she swept them into the glowing pool of chaos, but the burn of triumph overshadows it- she was chosen, _her_. 

She was taken to task and deemed useful as more than a conduit to power Aretuza's magic. 

Her struggle with chaos does not end with mastering telepathy; however, finally glimpsing the rays of chaos she herself exudes does make Tissaia's tasks easier, her link to chaos becoming clearer, like an overgrown path thinning with time under the tread of her feet. But Tissaia never lets her rest, an unrelenting taskmaster with an eye for detail that feels inescapable, teaching with an ever growing urgency that pushes even Sabrina with her need for perfection right up to the point of academically induced collapse.

There are many times Yennefer feels herself faltering at the brink of her chaos, when she holds on tightly to it's reigns, fingers pale at the force of her grip and wondering whether she will bend water or vaporize it. Tissaia never lets her hide from it, aggravating it with clear intent that drove Yennefer to utter frustration until not even the scathing words can stop her from gathering the crackling force back into herself, where it stays and thrives occupying the cavity near her heart.

Each time she fails she seeks out the familiar office with the great oak door.

She always knocks, and she is always let in, eyes gleaming with equal parts challenge and determination meeting calm, unwavering ones. Like a forest fire burning on the banks of a lake, spitting flame and embers but always being doused should she tread too far. 

There is a sort of beauty in it, the balance of it all. And Yennefer, though she will never admit it, has found comfort in her role. 

Her chaos may consume the likes of Istredd, who's gentle romanticism she almost fears to touch lest it dissolve to dust in her hand, but it is not in her to dim her fire. 

And so, as Istredd whispers sweet nothings in her ears in the caves of Tor Lara, promising a sweet, quiet life of dusting bones and ale by a fire and a familiar warm body every night, her gut churns and she quiets him with insistent kisses and eager hands, and he takes it as her enthusiasm for the pretty pictures he composes. 

And when the morning breaks and she appears in the common study with the others, she breathes fire and sparks lightning and bathes in the revelation that Tissaia tolerates it, though she does not have to, and somehow manages to make sense of it all.

This is how she finds herself on a fall afternoon, sweeping in through the great door even older than the Rectoress herself, Yennefer takes care not to broadcast the comparison in front of the woman. Turns out “You think too loud” wasn’t a taunt but more of an observation, who would have thought. 

When Yennefer found out that she has just been throwing out her thoughts during her stay in Aretuza she wanted to lock herself in her room and not come out, well, ever. The only thing that got her out of that room was the thought of Tissaia storming in to get her herself, well that and Fringilla’s bribes. 

No one wants to be left alone to go over enchantments with Sabrina of all people. 

That evening it was a particularly delicate conjuring spell that is evading her, and she lets herself into the Archmistress’ office after having supper in the dining hall with the surviving young sorceresses. 

The office looks to be empty, the chairs are tucked in and everything was put away as impeccable as ever, but the candles are still lit and flickering steadily. 

Yennefer makes her way through the room slowly, ready should Tissaia emerge any moment. Beyond the desk of rich, deep wood there was a curtain of a thick material that wavers just enough with a breeze to suggest there was more of the room behind it, Yennefer has never had the opportunity, or lack of supervision, to explore past it. 

A part of her is hungry to learn more about the older sorceress, craves the glimpses of life behind the stern voice and reprimands. 

She hums thoughtfully, weighing the risks of a potential escapade versus going back to her own room for the night. In the end, Yennefer is nothing if not too stubborn for her own good, and so she does little to stop her feet from carrying her deeper into the lion’s den, farther than she has ever braved to go. 

When she sweeps passed the curtain with hesitant hands, she is met with two doors discreetly tucked on either side of the wall, they are engraved in Elder, some words Yennefer can make out, words for guard, and block, but there are many more beyond her scope, and when she slowly pieces some to an etymological equivalent to /brand/, well Yennefer does not need to give the Rectoress anymore reasons to think her dull, nor have a red glowing _intruder_ etched onto her forehead. 

But what she lacks in pure gall she makes up for in stubborn curiosity, and so she sends a thin wave of chaos and allows it to fill the surrounding area, a dilute test of magic searching for the now familiar mind of the rectoress. 

She senses the mental fortress beyond the door to the right and moves to grab the handle, her hand sails past the metal when Tissaia’s mind envelops her own, there is a sharpness between her ears that makes her suck in a breath and wince. 

The door swings at her so quickly Yennefer has to jump back to get out of its range, revealing a stern looking and mildly exasperated Tissaia de Vries. 

“Have you lost your mind completely?” 

“I thought you know the whereabouts of all your students, Rectoress. Or are you losing your touch?” 

Tissaia's lips become impossibly thinner, and Yennefer smiles, it is barely her fault she finds the woman’s unflappable disgruntlement so amusing, when the rectoress gives so little, Yennefer cannot help but test how much she can coax out.

“It has been a long time since fate has been cruel enough to saddle me with a student as impudent as you.” 

“Impudent? You wound me, Tissaia de Vries, I am nothing but a devoted soul under your tutelage.” 

Tissaia scoffs, and she cannot help but continue, “Besides, I think you’re beginning to enjoy my company.” 

That earns her a look. 

“On the contrary, piglet, nothing fills me with more happiness than the knowledge you will soon have a King to make miserable and not myself.” She speaks it with such pure dryness Yennefer has half a mind to offer Tissaia a glass of water, she must be parched. 

Years ago Yennefer would have grown angry at the disdain, but she knows Tissaia better now, so she raises her eyebrows and smirks instead and is rewarded with the tight lines around the Rectoress’ mouth softening. She steps aside as the rectoress walks past her and into the office, her attempt to peek into the room was blocked quickly by a slightly too loud thud of the door shutting. 

Yennefer concedes temporary defeat and follows the older sorceress to the desk at the room's center. 

“Oh, and has the Chapter decided on the unfortunate soul as of yet?” Yennefer tries to stamp down the eagerness for naught, she has been waiting a long time since her Ascension has been confirmed. 

She has just one kingdom in mind – the place of her misery, and of her rebirth. 

Tissaia tilts her head, tapping a finger on the back of her opposite hand deliberately – the closest the woman ever gets to coy, Yennefer’s hope flares. 

“Aedirn.” 

Her curved cheek hurts from the pull of her grin, and before Tissaia can stop her she moves for the pitcher of wine and a goblet, exactly where they always are, she fills one up, ignoring the stern click of her mentor’s tongue. 

Before she can move to drink it though, there is a rustle of skirts and a quick hand plucks it out of her grasp, “You are still my student, Yennefer, at least appear to respect my expectations while in my presence.” 

Yennefer pouts as Tissaia moves away with the glass, tilting her head back and blowing back her fringe of hair from her forehead, “I have the utmost respect for them, they've grown to be a loyal companion.” 

She turns back and pours another glass, turning around and clinking the one still in Tissaia’s hand, the sorceress' eyebrows take a dangerous dip but the lack of reprimand speaks what Tissaia herself does not say, an important distinction that Yennefer has grown to pay close attention to. “To King Virfuril’s health.” 

At Tissaia’s look, Yennefer takes a sip, careful with the curve of her jaw, she has come far from the self-conscious girl she was in the beginning, no longer refusing to eat or drink in front of others for fear of making a fool of herself, the woman in front of her was largely responsible for killing the habit, she would never let her hide. 

The Rectoress did not move to lift the goblet in her hand, tapping the edge with a finger. 

The prim and proper Tissaia de Vries needs a push, “It is poor manners to not drink to a King’s health.”

Said sorceress rolls her eyes. There was something warming about seeing the woman she used to be afraid of being open to these small expressions of her humanity around Yennefer. 

“Mayhaps I should toast to his nerves instead.” 

Yennefer's cheeks ache, high off of feeling that destiny has finally deigned to favor her, “We can drink to that later.” 

By the time the candles in the sconces scattered through the room have melted to half and the windows show a calm night with the light of the moon illuminating the window sill, Yennefer is, to put it bluntly, two sips away from being the drunkest she has even been in her relatively short life. Stopping short only of a night a winter ago when all the apprentices had met in Sabrina’s room and practiced conjuring – the evidence of their success had to be destroyed somehow, and Yennefer has never had wine before, an affront to Fringilla, who insisted Yennefer try all the sorts they have been able to come up with when she found out. 

Seems that Fringilla’s rich familial connections have fostered quite the knowledge of the Continent’s wines. That night was also when she learned that Sabrina snorts when she laughs. Her relationship with her sisters is strained at best, but there is a bond that festers in hardship that Yennefer grudgingly cannot escape. 

Tissaia has not kept up with her, employing her signature restraint on her second glass of wine, she spent more time swirling it in the goblet rather than drinking it, and Yennefer is peeved. 

“You know this is not fair.” 

“How so?” 

Yennefer gestures between the two of them, Yennefer has at some point found herself on a cushioned chair with a table near the wine pitcher that is now empty. Tissaia herself is seated by her desk, the chair pulled out to face the inebriated mage, the toe of a shiny leather boot peaking beneath thick navy blue skirts of her gown. 

“I am obviously putting way more effort into this than you.” 

“And what might this be?” 

“Celebrating.” 

A thoughtful pause, then;

“I can much better enjoy your festive mood in full control of my faculties.” Yennefer does not pause to question the giddiness in her chest at the admission that the rectoress was indeed enjoying this. 

“Have you told Sabrina her assignment yet?” Yennefer sat up, “Fringilla?” 

“No.” The thought warmed Yennefer, she tries not to smile to obviously, “They do not tend to make habit of barging into my office at odd times of the day. That presumptiveness is reserved solely for you.” 

Yennefer waves away that statement. 

“They don’t know what they’re missing.” She bites her lip, sobering up slightly as she reminds herself to god, not do anything too stupid and get kicked out. She’s been doing so well. 

Tissaia raises an eyebrow at that. Despite the relaxed atmosphere and the wine, Tissaia de Vries is still sitting there with nary a hair out of place, dress perfectly smoothed, the pendant hanging near her breast. 

What Yennefer wouldn’t do to see the unfazed Rectoress flustered, she has never succeeded in such a task. Maybe it is best the wine ran out when it did. 

“Still, I would much rather you not encourage them. I _do_ have things to do, you know.” 

They sat and talked for a while longer, and once Yennefer began to feel a little more sober Tissaia transitioned into her role once more, they discussed Aedirn, its royal family, and their political history. Little by little, Yennefer begins to feel in control of her life, ready for her assignment ahead, and she feels trusted by Tissaia for her abilities. There is warmth that she sees in the Rectoress and it makes her heart pound, her palms sweat, because she does not want to fail her. Tissaia never says it, she is still very much the Archmistress of Aretuza and her teaching style is stern at best, but Yennefer has began to notice, and she hopes it is not the product of her desperation. 

Yennefer doesn’t know how much has passed when Tissaia stands, the chair scraping and jolting her from her thoughts, “Enough now, I am sending you to bed.” She says imperiously. 

Whatever complaint she has prepared died in her throat watching Tissaia walk towards her, goblet in hand, Yennefer is mesmerized by the whish of her skirts and the moonlight framing her gown, the glinting of the pendant. 

She says nothing even as Tissaia took her own goblet out of her suspiciously unsteady hand and set the two twins down with frustrating precision on the table beside her, they stand equal distance apart from each other, in front of the pitcher, she watches a pale hand turn it just so to match.

Yennefer shouldn’t find it so endearing. 

The entire time Tissaia does not make eye contact with her, and when she finally does with a raised eyebrow and a pursed lip, to command her up again no doubt, Yennefer’s voice is thready, 

“You’re beautiful.” 

It is quite wondrous to see how a few simple words can stop time, make the world pause, or maybe it just enhances the stillness of what was a peaceful night.

But this was no Elder. 

Yennefer’s teeth click hard, staring up at the Rectoress with matching blooming surprise, fixated on the parted lips that seemed to have paused mid-word. 

The seconds pass and Yennefer cannot make sense of what had just left her, the agitation within her prowls, as if waiting for _something_. 

In the end, the older sorceress snaps them both out of whatever has transpired.

Tissaia does not smile, that would truly be a feat, but Yennefer is immediately drawn to the upturn of her lips, watches the dimple by the curve of her mouth as a warm pressure rises up her chest and behind her ears. It fills her with a warmth that was not from wine, her hand twitches to check the pitcher for psilocybe mushrooms. 

“Calling a sorceress beautiful?” The Rectoress tilts her head, but Yennefer is already zoned in on an errant pointer finger that was caressing the lip of the goblet it has previously arranged. 

The movement stops quickly and Yennefer looks back up at Tissaia, and though she looks as proud and above it all as ever, her eyes betray her. “I should hope your attempts at flattery improve before your meeting with Virfuril.” 

She relishes in a foreign sort of elation, she laughs, a choked sound and a tad too breathy, the very sound of it alarms her so much that she has to swallow and lean back into her chair, her heart is trembling and so are her hands and she is not sure what to do with any of it. 

Instead of snapping her out of her misery, Tissaia’s shadow floats away, so Yennefer watches her walk back into the room Yennefer found her in earlier that day, and Yennefer, still high off of the thrill in her chest lurches up as if she were tied to a string and the other end belongs to Tissaia de Vries, her hip bumps into the table and she winces at the clamor and the promise of a good bruise. 

Tissaia looks over her shoulder at the racket, the upturn on her lips turning into a disapproving frown stills her. “Stay.” 

Yennefer does, let it be known that she can obey orders sometimes, when they’re made by pretty sorceresses who are so cold and can shred you to pieces without mercy, but so innately good, and, and well _soft_. 

She waits for the sorceress to come back holding a small vial with a perfectly square label, she imagines the writing on it will have just the perfect amount of flourish to boot. She takes it curiously, hyperaware of the proximity of the deft fingers relinquishing the tonic. 

“That’s for tomorrow morning, I expect you in the greenhouse - on time.” The Archmistress emphasizes, straight backed and with her hands clasped in front of her waist, watching her expectantly. 

Yennefer sighs in affirmation, snapped out of the daze, she drags herself around to leave with mildly less poise than displayed by the other sorceress, only to feel a whir of chaos and a vortex appear in front of her, peaking back over her shoulder to squint at the Rectoress, who somehow makes a noncommittal shrug look imposing with one delicate shoulder. “That’s to keep you out of further mischief.” 

Yennefer is too tired, otherwise she’d have a proper retort, so she steps through and ends up in her room, the portal closing behind her with a soft hiss. As soon as the portal is gone she crashes into her bed with abandon and into the deepest sleep of her life, dreaming of blue eyes and an almost smile, of Aedirn and her ambitions. 

Despite being half asleep her eyes fly open and she startles up with a breath. She forgot to ask about the conjuring spell. 

Yennefer swears. 

\--- 

Yennefer discovers the contents of the mysterious room in the middle of winter, when the last of the green leaves of the birch trees have turned and fell, and the world is truly hushed and pale, the ocean around Thanedd fierce and volatile as it crashes onto the rocks. 

It happens as anything to do with Yennefer usually does, a product of pure audacity and a habit of stirring Tissaia de Vries to the point just before madness. Maybe she is overexaggerating somewhat, but Yennefer has the utmost confidence in her ability to make the Rectoress snap just enough that the delicate brown curl by her ear, so frustratingly trapped in her chignon, will let loose and the lock would line the side of her face, and that the pins in her hair would unravel in a glorious disarray, give Yennefer an excuse to ease the itch her digits get whenever she thinks of slipping her fingers in, what it would feel like to curl the locks of brown hair around her hand and tug – if Tissaia would gasp, if she’d glare, or smile against her mouth. 

The thought haunts Yennefer, invades her dreams, floods her with phantom sensations that terrify her. 

Why her.

Why _her_. 

But let it be known that she is good with handling problems, or rather, compartmentalizing the problem and burying it for the meanwhile until she can escape Aretuza and become the mind behind courtly decisions of Aedirn and earn the love and loyalty of its' court. 

And then, well if she dreams about a certain Tissaia de Vries in all her righteous and ever-unphased glory, she does not have to fear the consequences of rash, half-concocted plans made in the darkness of night in a lonely bed. 

That does not mean she cannot tempt fate, with Ascension approaching at the last dredge of winter, and the memory of Tissaia standing so close beside her, an image of two fingers pressed together against a mirror, touching it in such a way that Yennefer outright envied her own reflection, as _she_ spoke of the most powerful woman in the world. 

_She is stunning._

The memory is still fresh in her mind when she marches into Tissaia’s office with lethal intent, a grimoire in hand and some choice words of Elder in mind already half formulated, ready to burn that book to ashes. 

She found the office empty once more, and the Yennefer that has arrived at this school years ago would have been sensible and left. But no, this Yennefer has a bone to pick with an illusion elixir that has at least three dozen ingredients, and the woman that assigned it. 

Sabrina set about to gather them immediately, producing some of the ingredients with a speed that leaves Yennefer half-convinced she must be stealing them from a professor’s personal stores. 

If that’s the case Yennefer will give her a hearty pat on the back, mages need to work smart, after all. 

That brought on this entire incident.

Yennefer is convinced Tissaia has a personal study where she keeps some of the more precious ingredients, probably under protection spells aplenty. Yennefer is not conjuring a mandrake, nor is she travelling to Fen Carn. Hence, borrowing the ingredients from someone who has every means to replace their stocks seems like the best possible solution. 

If the rectoress is unhappy with it, well, that should surely teach her to assign more reasonable tasks. 

Yennefer suspects that the study must be hidden behind one of the two doors in the back of her office, and that they were expertly warded from unsanctioned intrusion. She wills her beating heart to still and takes out the flower from her dress, Feainnewedd. It took some convincing to get another from Istredd, and near half a sweaty night. 

The study is no doubt protected by strong spells and well tracked; Yennefer will not have a lot of time. 

She would consider this operation too risky had she been attempting it with anyone else, a vaporization charm or an enchantment that chars her on the spot would be unfortunate, but Tissaia is not the kind of sorceress to kill an intruder before she had the chance to wring out every single detail of their purpose there. 

Yennefer is somewhat confident the older sorceress would spare her from such an investigation. 

The blame really should fall on the Rectoress for tolerating Yennefer’s rashness, at this point she is semi-confident Tissaia is entertained by her flare for the dramatic, and well, Yennefer is more than willing to put on a show. 

The smooth petal of the Feainnewedd is bitter on her tongue, she whispers the words in Elder and steps through with a breath. 

She appears in a dark room, standing rooted to the spot and scanning the dark room, hesitant to use her own magic to light her way if it triggers anything unsavory. She can only shiver thinking what Tissaia could have come up with for her rivals in the Chapter. 

There is a long table stretched from one side of the study to the other, on it expensive looking machinery made of fragile glass. 

The distant wall was covered in rows of shelves filled with potion bases; alcohols, oils, and satchels of ash. They stood row by row, equally distanced and Yennefer is willing to bet, alphabetized. In the next row, vials of aether, rebis, and quebrith, and so many other ingredients she could not identify by eye are lined up. The next set of shelves held mortars and crucibles and many more specific compounding tools Yennefer is unfamiliar with. 

She can picture Tissaia spending hours here, pouring over lists of her inventory and checking each item for their recorded quantity. 

There were no bushels of herbs tied with twine, jars of claws or knucklebones to be seen. 

Disappointing, Yennefer was looking forward to pestering Tissaia about her promising potential as a wood witch should her position as Archmistress of Aretuza ever become too stimulating. 

Yennefer swept her chaos along the room with a featherlight touch, she cannot find any obvious signs of magic, though she will not fool herself to think she can isolate the rectoress' magical signature should she truly wish to have it hidden. She can only hope that by side stepping the wards on the door she is able to breach the room’s defenses unnoticed, Feannewedd can open portals that are distinctly unfamiliar to most mages, after all. 

She won’t push her luck. 

Yennefer searches the room top to bottom, scans each shelf looking for the mandrake root she needs. She finds the ergot seeds and others easily enough, but the mandrake is hidden, potentially due it’s toxic effects in the open air. 

She grinds her teeth in frustration and leans down under the table as a last attempt, her search pays off in a form of a big glass jar about the size of her head.

Mandrake root reminds Yennefer of the garden her home had that her mother kept, when summer came and the first harvest was ready to be pulled. Amidst the root vegetables there were always some that looked so twisted her younger sisters would make dolls of them, of her. She had hated them for it, but her sharp tongue would earn her a sharp strapping. Not that it ever kept her silent for long. 

She wonders if they are still there, at the farm, or if they have been married off yet, maybe to the young blacksmith's son, or the innkeeper's bastard that always tailed after Emilia. 

She traces the lines of the jar with her hands, struck by the thought that maybe she’d visit once she settles in Aedirn. Some business in Vengerberg would surely come up at one point or another, she can see them again, toss a coin to each of her sisters and hear them squeal with happy laughter like they did when they were little and she'd let them climb onto her back. 

Maybe she will even toss her father another four marks, with a silent curse to make his bones rot and his skin to swell. 

Yennefer has to loosen her grip as the jar protested under her whitened fingertips, she bites her cheek and scowls at the floor.

She tucks the jar into her armpit and moves to stand when a cold aura settles over her like the morning frost and a pounding pressure wreaks through her head. 

_Yennefer._

She yelps and lurches up off the flour, her rounded shoulder hits the underside of the table with a resounding crack and she stumbles back down with a wince and a clatter of equipment. There is a sharp crash of breaking glass and she stares down with wide eyes at the mess under her hands.

She lifts her palms off the glass gingerly, _shit_. 

The mandrake root sits in the sharp nest, and in an instant she is nauseas with panic and something else. Her eyes feel heavy and her vision swims, her hands look like they’re floating on water, bouncing from the different corners of her vision as she stumbles back. 

_Yennefer?_ Tissaia’s voice resounded differently now. 

Yennefer draws herself upright with her hands, looking around wildly as what once was a dark room burst into color, beautiful dashes of purple and pink in the air, the greens and yellows of the desk in front of her. She scoots back against one of the ingredient shelves and settles in, she knows what has happened, knows this is the mandrake root leaching into her respiratory system and staining her blood with hallucinogens. 

She can feel Tissaia approaching, she doesn’t know how, but the chaos inside her is spilling over itself, flooding the room and seeking out the sorceress desperately, and though it takes great effort she lifts a hand to evaporate the mandrake before the Rectoress comes close, the move drains her more than it should have. 

A familiar touch of chaos swells around her that was not her own, wrapping around her like a blanket and sweeping aside her panicked and searching telepathic hands, instead sinking in to fill the empty space of wild chaos thrumming around her like a wave enveloping the shore, slotting around her being like a shield. 

“Tissaia,” Yennefer does not recognize her own voice. 

A familiar face swims into view, and she must be truly hallucinating, because Tissaia has never looked so pale, her mouth moves quickly with words of Elder and her hands fly deftly around them. 

Yennefer breathes in, the mandrake spores still litter the air and they smell bitter and earthy, she wets her lips. 

She sees Tissaia’s eyelids drop briefly, the moment that the sorceress realizes what her protégé is ailed with perhaps, or maybe she senses it too, Yennefer realizes briefly.

Tissaia’s eyes open and Yennefer is keenly aware that the blue in them is but a thin ring around the pupil, nonetheless the Rectoress’ words flow steady and Yennefer feels her forehead cooling, she hasn’t even realized when the fever set in. 

Her back is pressed against the bottom shelf filled with tomes, they shift and rustle under her weight when she tries to sit up as Tissaia stands, but a firm arm holds her down and she is towered over for a moment until the Rectoress is off in a graceful flurry, Yennefer watches her feet disappear from view. Her vision swims in wonderous colours and she allows them to sweep her away in their current.

Time means nothing to her here. 

At some point Yennefer is woken by cool hands tilting her chin up, she blinks awake groggily to find Tissaia’s face close enough to count her eyelashes, the creases on her forehead. Yennefer’s hands ache, but she does not know for _what_. 

Insistent fingers trace her lips and it sends a sear of heat that makes her mouth open with a breathy exhale, a grimy paste fills the nook under her tongue, urged there by gentle fingertips. 

The paste tasted like sulfur and ash, but Yennefer held on to it stubbornly, because Yennefer does not give a damn about what anyone thinks of her, anyone except _her_ , and she is not spitting this out. 

The fingers linger on her mouth and Yennefer, still only half-cognizant, catches them when they moves to leave, she blinks her eyes open again with a sudden fervor, staring up at Tissaia as she presses those digits back to her lips, her hand drifts down from the pointer and middle fingers to the small wrist below, encircling it loosely. 

A distant part of her wonders if Tissaia is still feeling the effects of the plant, her pupils are still dilated and her eyelids heavy with an intensity that evades Yennefer, . 

The hand slips out of her grasp, and she sighs at the loss. 

She sees Tissaia falter, an otherworldly sight, and then there are hands cradling her neck, firms fingers massaging under her jaw. 

Yennefer doesn’t register that she’s tilting her head up until she hits a shelf behind her, resting her head there, her chest lifts with invitation, and she can barely still the thrill that passes through her when she hears a quiet laugh so close to her. 

She will be so very horrified as soon as the antidote takes full effect, being massaged into her bloodstream by insistent hands, but now, now she takes what she can. 

She feels Tissaia move to stand up, and the last phantom graze of her thumbs under Yennefer’s jawline takes her breath away, before Tissaia can stop her she staggers up, a hand grabbing hold a fistful of the dress at the Rectoress’ hip, finding the curve that fit her hand so perfectly there, the movement stopped Tissaia where she now stood, and Yennefer drops her forehead to the stiff material above the waist of the gown, mildly, she feels the buttons pressing into her forehead. 

Now familiar hands touch her hair delicately, skimming down her neck as gently as caressing a lark’s wing.

"Must you break every rule I've ever set." It was said so quiet Yennefer questions whether it was a trick of her mind, and it was so very hard to concentrate when there was a hand playing with the curls at the back of her neck, her skin prickles with goosebumps and she shivers in response.

Now is really not the time to be giving her a lecture. 

She has nothing to say to it, anyway, overwhelmed by the riot of sensations in her body as it betrays her, bares her soul under the influence of mandrake and Tissaia’s phantom touch. 

All she can do is tighten her grip on the gown, fingers flexing around the curve under her palm, the body beneath the gown twitches and Yennefer sighs blissfully. 

It is all most likely another dream anyway. Made so much more vivid by the mandrake. 

When she finally comes to she sits up so quickly she suspects whiplash, hair flying into her face as her hand flies up to clutch at the back of her neck, a memory of foreign fingers skimming the skin there masks the sharp pain. 

She turns around behind her expecting to see Tissaia cleaning up baubles and beakers damaged during her brush with hallucinogens, stern and silently furious but always with that deft, calm hand, waiting for Yennefer to wake up so she can give her the most thorough lecture of her life. 

An empty room greets her instead, her own room. There is no Rectoress sitting by her side this time. 

Yennefer brushes her hair out of her face with shaky hands. 

_Shit_. 


	3. Unanswered Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The only person more stubborn than Yennefer is Tissaia de Vries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay this is the longest chapter yet, because I am a sucker for these two and I love watching them interact with eachother. I also wanted to finish up the story in Aretuza so we can move on to some...juicier happenings. Hence, the next chapter will have a time skip. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has left a kudos or comment, they are the best encouragement and really drive me to keep writing! 
> 
> Please don’t be afraid to leave your thoughts, I appreciate all feedback. 
> 
> Without further a-do!

Untangling the mess of that night is a hard task. 

It comes in flashes, memories of phantom touches that seem not unlike her dreams, leaving her to sift through fact and fiction. The only certain thing is that she has broken into Tissaia’s personal study and had, unsuccessfully, attempted to steal from the Archmistress. The rest, a story of eager hands and desperation, are better left tucked away with the rest. 

An anxiety festers in her chest, gripping tightly around her lungs and squeezing with every thought. 

Because she does not care what anyone thinks of her, anyone except _her_. To lose her companionship is to lose a friend, and Yennefer cannot quite reconcile that thought, nor it’s implications. 

She curls her fingers gingerly, testing their range of motion around the mysterious bandages on her hands, delicately encasing a patchwork of cuts on her digits. Yennefer remembers the shattered glass vividly, a small miracle. 

There seems to be one logical thing to do, she knows, even Yennefer herself has some idea of propriety, whether she employs it or not. The timid companionship she has enjoyed with the rectoress is worth it. 

That alone was enough to drive her to the rectoress’ office, on the fifth floor of Aretuza, a grand oak door, and beyond it, what was once so comforting, is now full of uncertainty. 

She stands there, draws in a breath and lingers on the sensation of the air filling her lungs, she can pretend it imbues her with confidence to match, grabs the door handle and pushes. 

The door doesn’t budge. 

Yennefer tries again to the same result, until she finally gives up and raises a shaky hand to knock. 

She always knocks, and she is always let in. 

This time she stands in silence, burning holes into the wood grain of the door, straining her ears and trying to ignore the overflow of energy in her chest that keeps a tight fist around her lungs. Yennefer exhales, wetting her suddenly dry lips, looking around the hallway. 

Not knowing exactly what she was looking _for_. 

She knocks again, twice, a solid rap of her knuckles that would have hurt had she been focusing on anything other than her heartbeat and the knot in her throat she cannot chase away. 

Nothing. 

Yennefer sighs deeply and leans into the door, pressing the flesh of her palm into the wood and willing it to open. She grits her teeth. 

Too proud to knock a third time. 

There has always been a purpose to Tissaia’s silence, but now, as Yennefer leans dumbly against the door that has always been open, now shut, staring daggers into the wood as if it had been the one to wrong her, no revelation comes. Only phantom sensations of a delicate wrist, soft beneath the pad of her thumb. Two digits pressed to her lips. 

She thought it a dream. 

Yennefer pushes herself back, her hands drop to her sides limply. 

_Rectoress_. She sends beyond the door in supplication, in plea. 

Silence. Yennefer takes a shaky step forward and grabs the handle of the door and imbues it with magic, setting forth a questing tendril of manipulated chaos. It scouts the room beyond and flows amidst the chaos there like leaves in a gust of wind, searching. 

Only to be dispersed so swiftly she staggers a step back. 

If hers was a gust of wind, the chaos beyond the door was a coastal hurricane, uncrossable. Not aggressive but not welcoming. The intent cannot be clearer. 

_Tissaia_. A futile, last attempt. 

No answer comes, and Yennefer turns, and the weight in her gut turns heavier and from it grows a wall that barricades her heart. It shouldn’t hurt so much. 

\--- 

Tissaia does not ignore her per se, it is below her to outright vanish from existence, the ever dutiful rectoress. But there is a shift that pushes Yennefer back to her early days in Aretuza, and all her abilities of reading the minor reflections of the rectoress’ emotions that Yennefer has prided herself in learning, were erased so easily she has to wonder if she’d been any good at it at all. 

Yennefer does not seek her out again. 

It was time for a final test of their abilities, with Ascencion a mere fortnight away. Yennefer was woken up rudely by the groan of her door being opened. She sits up when Tissaia breezes in, for a moment, she thinks that maybe the rectoress is here to talk. 

“Get up.”

But no, with a curt command and not a spared glance she is gone again, leaving Yennefer to stumble after her in haste. 

That was the early hours of the morning when the sun has barely peaked above the blue horizon. Now it was far past noon and Yennefer has been wrung for all she has, a sheen of sweat is on her forehead and she feels bereft of air, sucking in deeply as she is tasked with feats each harder than the last. She summons clouds and draws water from the air, brings forth portals to life and manipulates the crows. She crudely mends bones of skeletons and stitches flesh of wounded pigs. 

The whole time, Tissaia’s eyes are precise and without mercy, and her tongue is sharp and quick to reprimand when she is too slow, or too lumbering. 

But mostly she keeps silent, and Yennefer gleans a certain victory in it, because she knows she hasn’t made a single error. 

When they are finally taken to Tor Lara, they are draped with a blanket of stars shining from the gap above, Tissaia steps past them and takes the center of the room, she is dressed in her thick green gown tonight, the expensive stitching on the sleeves sliding down the expanse of pale skin as she lifts her arm to the sky. 

Yennefer looks up. 

A full moon shone, and the world seems even paler, she feels the weariness in her bones even as she stands there. 

Sabrina and Fringilla beside her are not faring much better, they share quick glances and do not complain, they are close. Soon they will be scattered across the Continent for representatives of the Brotherhood to counsel Kings and Queens, Yennefer feels a pang of loneliness at the thought. 

The room grows darker. 

When she looks up again the moon is gone and dark, stormy clouds appear above them and the wind wakes up with a howl. 

The distant flash of chaos brings the sky to life. 

Yennefer feels the thunder as if it were a tide come to envelop her, and she cannot stop the shiver at the memories it brings. Of a bottle lying empty on the ground, cracked, and of the pain in her arm and the feeling of fullness within her. 

“Tonight, you will demonstrate to us that you are worthy of ascension.” 

Another flash of light illuminated the room, and Yennefer sees them, past the door that they had entered from moments before stood three men and a woman, the members of the Chapter of the Gift and the Art stood equally regal, but very much different. 

Yennefer drank in the sight of them curiously. 

There was a man in rich, golden robes who looks much like Fringilla, she can only deduce it was her uncle. Another stood to the side and wore the plainest of wool clothes, but something about him speaks of history and the weathering of time. 

The woman stood tall and beautiful, and Yennefer startles when she sees the elven features she possesses, faint in the limited lighting of the room. 

And in the middle of the group stood a man who looks to be approaching the twilight years of his life, with thick ginger hair and a beard, his seems more dismissive than the rest and judging from that, Yennefer can imagine that is whom Tissaia de Vries spoke off with such intricate scorn. Stregobor, Istredd’s Rector. 

His eyes are piercing and focused right at her, and Yennefer feels the shiver of alarm that moves up her spine. 

She swallows past a knot in her throat harshly and hears Sabrina and Fringilla beside her likewise shift under the scrutiny. 

Tissaia pulls them back to the present. 

“Your last task is simple, but vital to demonstrate your abilities.” 

The three young sorceresses look forward. 

“Capture lightning.” Without a vessel. Tissaia always knew how to make simple things complicated. 

She looks to Tissaia’s ungiving face, searching. Her heart is beating faster now at the dawning of the task. She looks up at the sky, blinking past the sparse raindrops that hit her eyelashes. 

“Sabrina.” The blonde steps forward first, with a nervous look to their audience. 

She accomplishes her task well, of course she does, and Yennefer threads her fingers in a deathly grip until they turn pale. 

Fringilla goes next, and she is succesful, mesmerized by the glowing orb in her hands and Yennefer hears the grunt of approval, the rustle of Artorius in his golden silk robes as he crosses his arms in front of him, looking pleased with his niece. 

The less pleasant man at the center still had his eyes on her. 

“Yennefer.” 

It has been months since that cursed night, but Yennefer has already begun to miss the sound of her name spoken by the rectoress, she looks down momentarily, remembers the years of companionship that has built on frustration and studious nights spent under Tissaia’s instruction. 

It all comes down to this now, her hands squeeze together impossibly tighter and her digits complain. 

She looks up, tilting her chin up at the rectoress who is watching her as if she were a stone statue. Yennefer sees it though, because Tissaia is all poise and uncaring countenance, but her eyes betray her. Yennefer cannot call it warmth, but she has seen it before, when Tissaia was a patient Rectoress and she was a hunched, awkward girl that could not keep still. 

She wants to call it faith, bright in Tissaia’s eyes for a moment before it is shuttered. 

It is enough to remind her how far she has come, Yennefer steps forward, looking up into the stormy sky and seeing the blinding pool of chaos that shifts in the sky – it is there, beyond the black clouds and the rain. Like a ray of sun hiding behind the curtain but burning so bright it illuminates the world regardless. 

She has imagined an audience in the caves of Tor Lara for a very different reason, but this will do, she supposes. 

She will show them why she should be loved and feared. 

Why _she_ should love her. 

Yennefer sees it, the tendril that hangs from the dark sky, invisible to the naked eye, the anchor. 

She throws her hand up and grasps it with firm fingers that buzz at the contact, a spark catches, she brings her arm down and the chaos follows her in great bursts of white fire, spilling from the heavens like water past a broken dam. 

It is over in seconds. 

Three lightning strikes broke in quick succession, and she pulls them in and lets them fill her. 

It sears the inside of her skin, shoots along her spine and each vertebrae all the way down to her toes, swelling within her. She allows herself to be filled with energy, feels it behind her eyes, the spark of chaos pure and unbridled plucked directly from the source. 

The very air around her crackles as she curls her pale and glowing hand into a fist and smiles in triumph and looks back to her audience. 

Stregobor looks like he has bit into something sour, his face is pale and his eyes she cannot read but they bring no comfort. 

Tissaia is already watching her when she finds her eyes, with a look she has never been graced with and cannot name, it accelerates her treacherous heart. She is giddy with the chaos that flows within her, she bites her lip and looks back to her hand, outstretching it slowly and squeezing the lightning out of her being, letting it transcend the skin and build onto the palm of her hand like water filling a bucket, until a bright ball of light drifted above, encased by glowing fingers. 

She tilts her chin up, the sloped curve of her shoulder pulling uncomfortable, but she does not hunch. 

_This, this is who I am._ She wants to say. _I am powerful_.

Tissaia looks away first, to the proud representatives of the Brotherhood. 

“Are you satisfied?” 

Yennefer cannot keep the smirk from her face at the tone Tissaia uses to address her colleagues. 

She stands a little straighter as they bow their heads and acquiesce. 

\--- 

The next day they are granted leave to prepare for the ceremony and the swearing of oaths, and Yennefer uses that time to escape both Aretuza and the rectoress, to dispel the growing headache she is plagued with. 

She wanders until she finds herself in Loxia. 

The lowest extension of Thanedd is bursting with life, readying for the arrival of Kings and other dignitaries from most corners of the Continent. The Lyrian King has already arrived, she has seen the yellow banners billowing, and the black gryffon on the cuirass of their knights. 

King Virfuril will arrive any day with his entourage. 

Yennefer has to watch her feet lest she trip on the reality of the impending shift to come. 

Her feet lead to the great hall that will host their Ascension ball, descending a narrow stone staircase that avoids the bustle of life, scurrying servants preparing rooms looking down quickly as she passes. 

She tries to ignore their eyes. 

Yennefer knows she is not supposed to be here, but there is incessant ache within her that desires to escape. Far away from here, far away from the chagrin and confusion and lust she does not know how to deal with, except to run from. 

Keep running forever, maybe. 

The hall’s doors are open wide and the servants are busy with their decorations, carrying swaths of draperies, dishes, buckets of candles and others. A group of burly men responsible for furnishing the room were carrying a long table in. 

She ducks under and enters the hall, her eyes drawn to the tall ceilings. 

With each breath she takes she can taste the magic in the air. 

“It was the last building constructed by the Aen Seidhe.” Yennefer turns so quickly she trips over her own feet. 

Tissaia is not looking at her, but up at the ceiling, her mouth curves up. 

“The last structure to be introduced before the First Landing.” 

There is a pause, Yennefer does not know what to say, except to finally take this chance. 

“Tissaia - “ But she is quickly interrupted. 

“Medeve says you have improved considerably,” Tissaia eyes her, Medeve was their dancing mentor, an unpleasant man who took a special pleasure in describing each and every way Yennefer’s body is not built for the task. 

Hearing anything close to praise from that man is something of an experience, and Yennefer finds herself struck mute once more. 

“Still, I wonder if you will humiliate the Brotherhood with your two left feet.” 

It sounds so familiar to something she would have said before Tissaia withdrew from her. Yennefer cannot find it in her to threaten the seeming attempt at a truce. 

She raises her eyebrows at the older sorceress, who has now approached to stand beside her. 

“After your thorough instruction, Rectoress? Your statement is a slight upon yourself.” 

Tissaia has after all, taken over Yennefer’s instruction more than once when that old man came too close to the end of his existence under Yennefer’s hands. 

The rectoress hums, maybe she is also thinking back to those instances, and Yennefer’s mouth twitches. She watches the careful neutrality on the rectoress face as she appears to observe the setup of the hall. 

That is surely why she is here. 

The workers try to make no obvious signs that they are aware of the Archmistress present, but Yennefer can see their hands work faster, the chatter dimmer than a moment before as they studiously keep their eyes low on their employment. 

“Still, I would much rather ensure we avoid such scenarios.” 

“What a tragedy that would be, to step on royal toes.” 

Even now it comes so easy. 

Yennefer can pretend that night never happened, enjoying the woman beside her at ease. Or, as relaxed as the rectoress can get. 

She seems satisfied to stand here, and Yennefer enjoys having the older sorceress by her side, shoulder to shoulder. Still, the offense at her dancing skills is not something she can let go while Tissaia is in good humour. 

“Well Rectoress.” She raises an eyebrow and meets her eye. “How shall I prove myself to you?” 

She allows her voice to lower in register, and Tissaia rewards her with a frown. 

The rectoress makes a show to look around the room and all its occupants, who are no doubt keeping an open ear in curiosity, hunting for fodder to their rumor mill. 

Yennefer does not give up so easy, caught in the giddiness of them returning to some semblance of normality between them. 

“Would you prefer somewhere more private?” 

Tissaia’s lips purse and Yennefer enjoys how quickly her eyebrows shoot up, but the woman tilts her head to the side, her lips twitch momentarily. And then, 

“Out.” 

Her voice projects all through the room, and everyone in the vicinity looks up from their tasks, fake or not, startled. 

The Archmistress of Aretuza makes a show of turning and meeting each and every one of their confused stares, it seems her look is enough to send everyone filing out of the hall. 

After a quick scrape and thud of tables being put down where they were, baskets set, drapery left forgotten and the clutter of feet as the crowd bows before the Rectoress and flees, they are alone. 

It has been months, and Tissaia has not spoken a word to her beyond the usual instruction and commands, and it has left Yennefer deflated. And now, now that woman speaks to her as if nothing has occurred between them. 

Yennefer wonders if the rectoress knows how frustrating she can be, if she takes some secret pleasure from it. 

“Yennefer.” 

She blinks, and sees a pale hand outstretched to her. 

Her gut twists. 

“Well?” 

Tissaia is stern, but the humour in her voice is what spurs Yennefer into action, she rests her hand on the outstretched one delicately and tilts her chin up. 

She is lead to the center of the ballroom, amidst the scattered long tables waiting to be lined up with the rest at the other end of the hall. One table stands turned slightly, standing apart from the rest, she smiles when the table twists with a scrape of the table legs, falling in line with its neighbors as they walk past it. She looks back to Tissaia who keeps walking as if nothing happened. 

A familiar fondness glows inside her, she tries to temper it. 

It is difficult, as Tissaia takes the leading role and holds her hand. The other hand rests at her ribs, a gentle pressure to begin their dance. Yennefer ignores the pace of her heart and takes the rectoress’ shoulder, stilling the tremor in her hand. Being so close to Tissaia is distracting, infuriating, delighting. Tissaia takes the first step. 

She is well enough at it, the Rectoress has made sure of it. 

Tissaia takes her through many different dances, from the traditions of Kaedwen to the faster waltz of Redenia. Her feet, despite the previous jab, keep up with practiced ease with the Rectoress, though she cannot hope to match the flow and delicacy Tissaia exudes as she takes them around the floor. 

But maybe she can fault the rectoress’ eyes, and her touch that fills Yennefer with dangerous energy. 

Even now, she does not know what to make of this, Tissaia’s voice is quick in its instruction, though Yennefer is doing fine. It is as if the rectoress needs to keep speaking, continues to pretend this is some lesson and not some unknown phenomenon of Tissaia asking Yennefer to dance in the most Tissaia way possible. 

Yennefer wonders what Tissaia will do once there are no mentor-student titles to hide behind. 

She has lost track of time, they could have been dancing for minutes or hours, or days. She flips between watching Tissaia's face, unreadable and instructive until her chest does this funny gallop that it does and she is forced to look past the rectoress' shoulder. Her hand burns on the fabric of the gown, the pads of her fingertips is also she can focus on, it is a true miracle that her body has memorized the steps. 

Eventually fingers at her ribs nudge her gentle to a pause, and it is only with gigantic effort she stops the keen that threatens to leave her that the rectoress has dared to let this torture end. They stand there, in silence. Yennefer finds herself staring intently at Tissaia, fearing that even one word can shut away this Tissaia forever. 

“Good.” 

Tissaia’s voice is never so soft, never so gentle, and Yennefer feels a heat creep up her neck. 

And then she was gone, sweeping out of the hallway in a shuffle of skirts that was just a touch too hasty for her normal regal stride. 

Yennefer swallows drily, watching her go. 

\--- 

It was Giltine to bring her the news, that fucking Enchanter had the grace to look apologetic as she took the dress from her hands and replaced it with that ugly red cloth better suited to a brothel than a ball. 

Her fingers twisted the material until they turned white with the force, until she could hear the complaints of the fabric. 

After all this, after the years of talking, and then one stupid night of recklessness and then months of silence that follows, the constant treading on thin ice, and now this. 

The door to Tissaia’s office is closed again, of course it is, that red oak door seems to laugh at her, Tissaia did not deem to speak to her on the subject at all, expected her to lay down and thank her for the scraps they deemed fit to give her, Nilfgaard of all the backwater kingdoms. 

“Tissaia!” She yells at the door, her voice shrill with emotion as she projects the same thought beyond the door. 

The silence mocks her. 

“You old, conniving bitch!” 

She snarls and sends a wave of chaos that rattled the door at its hinges, the wood groans as the glyphs etched onto the door light up and disperses her magic back with silent thunder. 

Yennefer battered it again and again, and each time the enchantments on the door dispelled it like a mere breeze in spring. 

Tissaia thinks she can avoid her all over again? She doesn’t know if she wants to laugh or cry. 

“Very well, Rectoress. If you do not deem me worthy of an explanation, I will get it out of you regardless!” With one last bang on the door she turns. 

The Rectoress has lectured her on the importance of control more times than she can count, has watched her struggle with the most basic of magic. All of the memories that swam tot he surface took place in one room. Yennefer sweeps into the familiar greenhouse like a hurricane. 

The Rectoress and her control. 

She sets it alight with Elder in a scream of rage, arms sweeping at the candles as they spring to life and grow. The flames catch on all that is made of wood, the smell of burning mint and mistletoe and all the rest fills her nose. 

She drops her hands to her sides.

It felt something like victory, and something like heartbreak, to watch it burn. 

Yennefer is still standing in the midst of the fire when she is suddenly overtaken by a wave of chaos, it rips the windows open with a clamor of wood and shaking glass with a bang that makes her ears ring. The ocean wind floods in, howling, and the smell of salt water fills her nose and all of a sudden the air sucked out of the room. The fire sputters in mere moments, and Yennefer is left in the smoke and the dust.

Yennefer snarls. 

“These tantrums are beneath you, Yennefer.” 

There is something feral inside her that keens at the voice, the bitter curl of her mouth straining her cheek as she stares ahead stubbornly, she doesn’t turn to look behind her at the woman she has so earned to see. 

Her ears ring, her heart quickens. 

“Not too late to turn me into an eel, Rectoress.” 

Her voice sounds hallow. 

Tissaia stays quiet, Yennefer does not turn to face her, staring at the charred wines of the mistletoe nearby. 

Finally, the rectoress speaks, and the cold in her voice settles over Yennefer like a vice, it grapples with the heat of her anger. 

“If this is your way of proving me wrong about Nilfgaard.” 

She said it in such way that broke no argument on whether it was in any way effective. 

Yennefer scoffs, turning finally to face Tissaia who is stands tall and stiff, a look of disapproval clear. It stung somewhere deep within her, the awkward girl who earned for nothing more than her approval. The thought makes the anger grow hotter. 

“Let me speak to them.” She hates how desperate she sounds. 

Tissaia looks away to observe the state of the greenhouse, it feels like a slap to the face of her vulnerability, 

“I handle court assignments, Yennefer.” 

She curls her hands furiously. 

“You promised me Aedirn.” 

“Other items came to light which led me to believe you better suited for Nilfgaard.” 

Yennefer scoffs, growing angrier, did she really think so little of her? Better suited for the scraps of a broken Empire and a drunkard King? 

“There is no power in puppeting fools, especially ones that would much rather fondle their sorceress than listen to her!” 

This is the first reaction Yennefer sees in Tissaia, the wrinkles on her forehead and the softening of her eyes, it looks almost like trepidation, and she holds onto it like a key. She’s got her. 

She steps forward, dangerous and slow. 

“I don’t think new items came to light; I think the Chapter overruled you.” 

Silence. 

Another step. 

“Is that it? Tissaia de Vries finally knocked off her glass pedestal.” Yennefer barks out a laugh, but her heart trembles and her chaos clashes behind her ribs as she searches for affirmation that the rectoress did not in fact do this out of spite, that although her pride refuses to admit it, that she cares for Yennefer too much to send her off with King Fergus willingly. 

“It was your blood.” 

She speaks so quiet, but Yennefer hears static building in her ears, like the pressure of a thunderstorm building before the lightning strike. 

“Efforts in Cintra prevent the Chapter from installing a mage of elven blood in Aedirn’s court.” 

Yennefer tilts her chin up, closing her eyes momentarily at the revelation. 

Why does this feel worse. 

“How could you tell them.” 

Her voice trembles, and she hates it. 

Tissaia’s eyes harden. 

“I did not.” 

It is spoken with the same conviction she has once said _I promise_ , all cold and proud and without any room for doubt. The next thing she says is gentler. 

“Stregobor did.” Istredd. 

The ringing in her ears grow louder, the thunder brews as Yennefer searches Tissaia’s face for any hint of lie. 

Tissaia has never lied to her. 

It is a terrible feeling, to feel the ground beneath your feet collapse and suck you down into the depths. Where is no light to see, where you can only crawl and hope to find escape. 

Yennefer stumbles past Tissaia, not meeting her eyes as she sweeps past lest what she sees in them makes her collapse, or worse, lest the rectoress sees the wet burning in her eyes that she cannot push back. 

She flees to Tor Lara, burning with the knowledge that she has been betrayed. 

But no, not by Tissaia, but by Istredd, the boy who swore on his life and wore his heart on his sleeve so obviously she never bothered to question /why/. 

Istredd finds her in the belly of the Tower of the Gull, the same place that had first made her feel something, the place where she first begun to learn what it was to feel wanted. 

The words they exchange are a crossfire, they spit, and claw, and say everything they have meant to say to each other, no longer stifled by a mask of silence of the Chapter and their expectations. 

Istredd fancies himself a hero and her, a damsel in distress who has lost her way. She wonders if this was some sort of catharsis, to tear herself away from the life she has built in Aretuza so completely and unleash all she knows in her soul. 

That there are no heroes, no romantic adventures, and no happy endings. 

It was her delusions that if she plays /their/ tune, becomes what they want her to be, that she would be happy and carve out a place for herself. But there is no room for sorceresses of Aretuza move beyond the wills of the Chapter, nor Tissaia herself, who presents the face of a savior and expects complete subservience in return. 

They will not give her what she wants, they will only seek to take what she has left. 

And she will be made a simpering fool, meant to line up at the board of their game and wait for command. 

The thought of it spurs her forward. 

Tissaia always through her unpredictable and dangerous, Yennefer will show her exactly what she can do. 

\--- 

She searches for Tissaia before she sees her, her chaos washing over the great hall and seeking out the familiar pool of energy that the rectoress commands. Like an invisible hand, she grasps at it, and as soon as she makes contact, Tissaia surrounds her with that familiar pressure, vast and powerful. 

But Yennefer does not back down, lapping at the pool of energy that marks the rectoress like a cat rubbing at someone’s legs. 

The familiar ocean of chaos falters, then withdraws. 

Yennefer tastes the triumph, allows it to fill the space where Rectoress will feel it. 

The returning disapproval makes her smile, but she hears it, the multitude of whispers of emotion like the stirring of an ocean that she cannot decipher, coming from the rectoress’ mind. 

She steels herself against the whispers. 

The doors of the great hall swing open as she walks through, her new body feels foreign, she imagines this is what it feels like to wear armor. 

Yennefer glides into the ballroom like a conqueror, ready to reclaim the crown from her usurper. 

Her eyes find Tissaia first, an uncontrollable impulse. 

It takes one frosty look from the sharp-featured woman adorned in a beautiful red gown, and a neckline uncharacteristically revealing for the Rectoress. Yennefer is looks away, settling on her true target instead. 

At his side stood Fringilla, a sullen expression on her face. 

This will be easy. 

She approaches King Virfuril in a manner they were all taught, haughty and ethereal and completely ignoring a delectable Hurricane Tissaia approaching from the corner of her eye. 

“Yennefer of Vengerberg.” She greets him smoothly. 

She must avoid looking to her right at the woman who can make her slip, a storm that can and will rip her from the shoreline and into the unforgiving sea. 

Tissaia looks positively decadent in her maroon dress, and Yennefer fights the urge to glance at the woman’s painted lips as she calls her misguided. It makes her want to laugh, Yennefer has never been so sure about her path as she is in that moment, her path to power was standing right in front of her. 

Tall, handsome with a trimmed beard, and an excessive golden crown on his head that makes anyone with half a brain wonder what he is trying to compensate for. 

When they dance she is reminded of another body, soft fingers applying gentle pressure to guide her. Firm and sure, instructions falling off smooth lips. _Step, one, two._

She refuses to look at them now, as she dances in a different embrace, though they seem to call to her, red and luscious for the occasion. 

At some point she had fallen for the Rectoress’ need to mold, shape and control, and Yennefer lost herself in her naïvety, ate up the drips of care and the attention Tissaia bestowed on her with desperation, no matter the cost. 

She will never be that girl again. 

Yennefer doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks of her, least of all, _her_.

She knows Artorius and the rest of them are watching her like vultures, that Istredd is sulking in the corner in his crowd. 

Sabrina catches her eye from the arm of King Henselt, and although she is as cool and collected as ever, a Tissaia protégé through and through, Yennefer spares her a glance before she is whisked away by King Virfuril, the only sign of a grudging respect that has blossomed between the two rivaling sorceresses that were almost friends. 

\---

Later, when Yennefer has triumphantly left the hall in Loxia to return to her quarters, she sees a poised shadow sweep through and stops, a smile curling at her lips that was anything but friendly. 

The lanquid steps halt behind her, and Yennefer turned to find a decidedly disorderly apparition of the Archmistress of Aretuza. 

Tissaia is a sight to be seen, in her blood red gown, the gems at her delicate throat glinting in the firelight of the sconces that flicker in the hallway. 

And an expression so severe she might as well be holding a knife to Yennefer’s throat at that very moment. 

Yennefer waits a moment, two, then, “Well? Will you begin your lecture, Rectoress?” 

Tissaia surprises her, appraising her with an intensity that makes her skin heat up, “Did you have to frighten Giltine so? Aretuza may have need for a new Enchanter.” 

“I’m sure the prestigious institution can afford to give the man a raise, he is quite the artist.” 

“Indeed, he has outdone himself.” 

Yennefer’s heart fumbles at that, she steels herself, curls her fingers into fists. 

A relaxed and jesting Tissaia de Vries is dangerous to Yennefer’s resolve. 

At her silence, Tissaia sighs. 

“Why is it that whenever I feel the need to rip my hair out at the roots it’s always something to do with you, Yennefer?” The familiarity in Tissaia’s voice unbalances her, bats away at her seething anger, but Yennefer won’t let it, she clings to it with shaking hands like a lifeline. 

Whatever Tissaia sees in her, it makes her draw her chin up. 

“You seem intent on outdoing yourself in your recklessness.” 

Yennefer tastes the bitterness in her mouth, “The day I leave my life in the hands of those peacocking fools is the day I crawl back into a pig pen.” 

Tissaia tuts in disapproval, and Yennefer feels like that awkward girl again. 

“Why would you make enemies of the Brotherhood?” 

It's like she is back in Tissaia's office, sitting across from the Rectoress. The memories sting. 

“You are angry at me because I dared to do something you don’t have the nerve to do.” 

Tissaia scoffs, the cracking of her mask to reveal the pure frustration within is worth more than gold to Yennefer. 

“Antagonizing the Chapter will get you nothing.” 

“It gave me Aedirn when you could not.” 

The rectoress stays silent at that, and Yennefer presses on. 

“You were right then; everyone has their own agenda – and maybe I have finally discovered yours. Archmistress of Aretuza.” 

She savors Tissaia’s confusion. 

“Tearing girls from their homes and until all they have are these forsaken walls. Using them as fodder to the politics of the Continent, molding girls to release into the world bound only to duty and with nowhere to run.” 

Tissaia’s face shifts to something darker. 

“I care about my girls, the ones I bring into these walls and teach control when otherwise they would have none and be a menace to themselves and others!” 

A pause, then.

“And maybe I failed.” 

Yennefer lets the anger roll through her, shutting the hurt down before it has a chance to settle on her face. Wanting to prove herself to Tissaia was one of her many mistakes. 

“Maybe you did, but I’m not the only one you have failed, Rectoress.” 

She thinks of all the innocent girls serving as conduits to Aretuza’s magic. 

Tissaia, Yennefer can bet all she has that the woman does not live with a single regret, proud to the bitter end. Each decision is carefully planned, potential consequences and risks evaluated until candles burn low, plans constructed over decades to bear fruit at the exactly right moment. 

Tissaia does not do anything without a plan that she can probably fill a full novel with. The thought of where Yennefer herself may fall in those plans only makes the sizzling heat of anger burn fiercer in her chest. 

“Those girls were too dangerous to let loose upon the Continent.” 

“Oh, and so am I, is that what you’re trying to say, Rectoress?” 

Yennefer snorts at her silence. 

“Do words escape you now when someone finally throws some fucking truth in your face?” 

“Enough, Yennefer.” 

Tissaia’s voice is all command. Yennefer ignores her, so fucking proper to the bitter end, that old bag. 

She digs in, looking for a way into that prim woman.

“What about Fringilla? She’ll now be shipped off to some whoring drunkard of a King in the south, do you even care?” 

Yennefer can see her lips thin, the nervous tick in her jawline, the pale skin of her neck down to her collarbones that does not often see the light of day calls to her. 

She is damned. 

“Of course I _care_.” Tissaia speaks quietly, and Yennefer’s eyes shoot back up to the rectoress’ face, there is a softness around her eyes that makes her want to look away again. 

“But that is a world we must traverse as mages, as women, I cannot protect her, but I have given her all I have to give to ensure she can protect herself and bring Nilfgaard out of its misery.” 

It is a curse, how easily Tissaia can deflate her, she will not allow it this time. 

Yennefer looks at the floor, smoothing the emotions of her face before she can look at the Rectoress again. 

“And what about me, Tissaia?” She says hollowly. “What was the plan you had so carefully concocted for me? All those nights in your study, your wasted time on me?” _And maybe I failed_. 

“Do not presume you are a part of some nefarious plot on my behalf. I gave you all I could to see you succeed.” 

Yennefer feels the sharp pang of loss at the disappointment in the Rectoress’ eyes, Tissaia has trained her well. 

That thought rekindles the anger and she hugs it close. 

“You are merely angry I thwarted your plans by finally taking control of my life.” 

She is done seeking the approval from the likes of them, from her. Something about what she says must have hit close for the Rectoress, because she takes a step back and thunders. 

“What plans? By the gods, Yennefer! Is that all you see me as?” 

“I see truth in actions, Rectoress!” She laughs and it falls bitterly off her lips. “My own mother argued so hotly with that ass of a man who sold me to _you_.” 

She can see Tissaia’s face take on a look she cannot recognize, she pushes on. 

“Oh how she cried, standing there and doing nothing. You talk about good intentions; but all I see is someone who likes to pretend she cares enough to get the subservience she thinks she deserves.” 

This might be the first time she ever witnesses Tissaia’s visible recoil. 

Silence reigns again, their long time companion. 

“Yennefer.” The older sorceress started, another step closer and Yennefer can have felt the warmth of the woman’s breath. 

She found herself staring into stormy blue eyes, they shined, the Rectoress can hide many things, but it seems that her eyes will forever be the one thing to betray her. Or maybe the sadness there was merely another trick, a deft move on the board of Tissaia’s game. 

Tissaia spoke carefully, softly, so unlike herself, “The path you are leading, it will not end well.” 

“Don’t. Don’t act like you care.” 

It comes unbidden and desperate, a little bit of Yennefer’s pride crumbles. 

Tissaia considered her for a moment longer, a calm ocean on a summer evening staring into a forest fire, still so frustratingly close, she searches her eyes, but Yennefer felt no ripple of a stealthy mind trying to weasel through her defenses. 

Yennefer swallows thickly. 

“You keep fighting, Yennefer, like you do not know anything else.” 

Tissaia takes another step, Yennefer tenses. 

“Do you think this anger is directed at me, or the world, or the Brotherhood?” Tissaia’a are a soft blue now, and that alone is enough to build heat behind Yennefer eyes that she will _not_ let out. 

“No, you stand here battling the phantoms of your own mind, not caring what chaos you’ll cause along the way.” 

She hears Tissaia’s voice waver, “Nor who is caught in your tides.” 

The space between them has become suffocating, and Tissaia is not done sucking the air out of Yennefer’s lungs. 

“You will raze the world to the ground searching for something you fear you are not worthy of.” 

“You’re wrong.” It comes out breathless. 

Yennefer tilts her chin up, her teeth hurt from the force she is grinding them with, keenly feeling that step that loomed like no man’s land between them. 

She cannot look away from Tissaia, who raises her eyebrows and says, so simply. 

“Prove me wrong.” 

Tissaia takes that step then, that one treacherous step that now brings them toe to toe, Yennefer looks away, staring past Tissaia’s shoulder. She hasn’t noticed before how much smaller Tissaia is after her enchantment. 

Her spine aches still. 

She is close enough to hear the soft sigh coming from the rectoress, she knows Tissaia is waiting for her to look, but now that they are so close, Yennefer is afraid. 

She does not know _wha_ t she is afraid of. 

A hand lands on her elbow gently, the fingers burn underneath the fabric and Yennefer finally locks eyes with her. Violet meets blue. 

Tissaia’s eyes are searching, there is a crease between her eyebrows that Yennefer wants to smooth away, but she stands there, limply, focusing only on the touch of the sorceress’ hand. 

In the silence interrupted only by Yennefer’s trembling breath, the fingers squeeze her elbow, comfortingly, before dropping as Tissaia steps back to walk past her. 

She wants her to go, wants to do away with this farce, wants to quiet her breathing and still her heart. 

But, before Tissaia could completely disappear, Yennefer needs to know one thing. 

“You’ve been avoiding me.” 

The steps halted jarringly; it comforts Yennefer to know she is not the only one affected by all of this. 

She turns around, staring down at the shape of the Rectoress, she hasn’t noticed that the smooth pale skin of her back is revealed by the gown she wears, the silver chain glints as rests just under the bump at the base of her neck, the tops of her scapulae peak from the gown. 

“Why?” 

It feels like justice to unbalance the rectoress in return. 

“Where shall I begin?” Tissaia’s voice is back to being quipped and deadly. 

But Yennefer sees a pale hand reach out to straighten a sleeve, it reveals her. 

Yennefer steels her breathing and chuckles, but there is not an ounce of humor in it, it makes Tissaia turn towards her. 

“If you were so angry about my deception you would have woken me when the hallucinogens faded, you could have punished me in so many ways as befitting a Rectoress, and yet you chose to ignore me instead. Why?” 

Silence reigns between them, Yennefer is the one to step closer now. 

“I touched you. I kissed you.” She kissed her hand, a mere brush of lips when she allowed herself forget reason and listen to the baser instincts she has struggled against for so long. The semantics don’t matter, but even that detail makes the rectoress’ reaction even more maddening. 

Tissaia de Vries is no prude, she would not run away like some maiden, but she _did._

She could have laughed it off and pawned it as yet another student infatuated with a powerful, beautiful woman. Just like when Yennefer was drunk, on wine and the company and the moment. 

She had called Tissaia beautiful, and the rectoress laughed and no peace was disturbed. 

“And you put up so many walls there must have been a reason.” 

Tissaia’s face is a book she cannot read in that moment. 

“You wouldn't be afraid of me, who am I compared to you? Tissaia de Vries, Rectoress of Aretuza.” 

“Were you afraid of yourself?” 

She remembers blue eyes dark, the heat in her expression, flooded with an array with hot emotion that Yennefer could not put words to, even as the woman healed her hands and gave her the antidote, nursing her with a diligent calm that her eyes betrayed. 

How close was the rectoress to losing her beloved control? 

And how much of it was mandrake root, and how much of it was the base needs and wants of a woman somewhere underneath that stifling garb. Something like hopes flares to life in her chest amidst the torrent of chaos in her blood, she squashes it down. 

Tissaia regards her silently, then she murmurs so quiet Yennefer has to focus beyond the thrum of her pulse. 

“Goodbye, Yennefer.” 

With that, the Rectoress leaves. 

Yennefer does not have it in her to make her stay, and when the soreceress is gone, she draws her shoulders back and blinks up to the ceiling with a shaky breath she will only allow herself this once. 

Never again will she step foot in Aretuza. 


	4. To Wish Upon a Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yennefer tried to get away from Tissaia, she really did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! First of all, I wanted to say thank you thank you thank you for all the lovely comments and kudos. They helped me grind through this Chapter finally, despite everything that's happened with me in the past week. 
> 
> Second of all, I hope you enjoy this chapter, I will probably go through it in the next couple days and finds lots of errors that I'll have to correct but I just wanted to get this thing done. Else I'd lose my mind.

Life in Aedirn’s court is a shock that Yennefer cannot get past, full of pompousness and propriety that hid a thinly veiled penchant for the royal family to care little beyond their immediate entertainment. As such, she often finds herself thrust into diplomacy, negotiation, and tactical intimidation. 

And well, conflict resolution has never been touted as Yennefer’s strength. 

The Doweger Queen is found with a bard tangled in her bed sheets by the maids and the rumor mill turns. Yennefer finds the maids responsible and bind them to silence. 

Virfuril keeps a steady traffic of maids and ladies in waiting into his bedchamber. Yennefer keeps a line of potions at the ready should the inevitable bastards come. 

Every day, Yennefer is plagued with some issue or another, a Kaedwen assassin, another skirmish in Lormark that has Virfuril donning his red and gold armor and rattling his sword until he is pacified. 

She reassigns scheming stewards and keeps guard over the Queen, suffering many a shrill squabble between the royal couple as she chases women out of her husband’s sheets. 

Decades pass, and the same petty conflicts wear on Yennefer, she uncorks a good wine when the Doweger Queen finally bites the dust and celebrates the occasion with some visiting dignitary, there to pay his respects to the royal family in mourning, in the privacy of her chambers. 

Yennefer is not shy in squeezing every bit of pleasure out of her otherwise pleasure-less life, whether that be monetary or baser in nature. She discriminates in neither sex nor rank, intent only to fill the emptiness within her that has never been filled. 

A fool she was, to think that Aedirn would give her that fulfillment. 

She mourns Virfuril’s first wife, a quiet woman that often shared her disdain for the petty dealings of nobility with Yennefer, if only that in her replacement comes Queen Kalis, a bright eyed girl decades younger than her new husband and full of naivety Yennefer’s stomach turns at. 

If only because it reminds her of another girl, a lifetime ago. 

And she allows herself to swim in the anger and betrayal she feels at the fool’s plot to assassinate them both. 

She does not return to the court in Vengerberg, let him think he succeeded and be done with him. 

Yennefer knows very well when she is not wanted. 

Before she abandons Aedirn completely she has one stop to make. 

That single goal has her approaching the seat of Virfuril’s power, not a particularly wise move, but essential for some part of Yennefer’s soul. 

She will allow herself this one weakness, only this once. 

Her chestnut whinnies when she bids him to halt, the leather reigns creak in her tightening grip as she exhales, tries to focus on the white wisps drifting with her breath rather than what lies ahead. 

Before her courage flees, she frees the toe of her shoe from the stirrup and swings off the horse, her heeled boots sinking into the mud immediately, the ground is half frozen and slick with snow. 

She grabs at her skirt to keep the edges from the muck. 

The outskirts of Vengerberg are a far cry from the comforts within the white city walls with its parapets and guards and cobbled streets. Here, the dirt roads are weathered from the frost and heavy traffic both, the deep ruts of carts and prints of horse hooves digging up the ground beyond repair. 

She wills her heart to slow and slips the reigns from the gelding’s neck, fumbling with the straps. 

Yennefer pauses, looks down. 

She has to remind herself why she is here, the ache in her chest pangs in this moment as if to remind her. 

Childish laughter and the squealing of pigs finally break her from her trance, she thumbs the reigns in her hand, the gelding snorts as it noses the ground. 

Yennefer leads him to the barn ahead. 

The barn has not changed much in the past three and some decades, the wood walls and its patched roof looms over her as she approaches, a smoke comes from the chimney of the house. 

The fence is sturdy, there are sections of wood grey with age that Yennefer knows is still from the time that she was here, but it is clear to see that whoever lives here now is not letting the farm go into disrepair, she can picture her step-father binding the fence boards together, scowling and cursing. 

He was always a proud man. 

Too proud to keep a hunchback for a daughter. 

“Hello?” 

She startles, looking down at a young boy who is peering at her from behind the fence. He was no older than ten, with ashy brown hair peaking from his wool hat. 

“The suckling’s ain’t ready to be sold.” He mumbles quietly. 

Yennefer blinks, there is a knot in her throat that she cannot force down to form word. 

She opens her mouth, closes it. 

The boy blinks back at her oddly, “You alright, miss?” 

“Your parents.” Yennefer finally speaks quickly. “Are they home?” 

He nods, scrunches up his nose at her. Yennefer can’t help the smile at his quizzical look, the expression felt wrong on her face, her heart is threatening to beat out from under her breastbone. 

“Irnon!” The boy’s head whips back to the house, and so does Yennefer’s. 

In the doorway stands a woman in her forties, with long dark hair under a wool hat and in a dusty brown dress, stained with age but clean. The boy, Irnon, bolts back to his mother, his feet thudding on the wood boards, she clasps her hands on his shoulders as he turns back to look at Yennefer. 

Yennefer stares at her sister. 

“Do you need help, milady?” Her ears ring, she steps back. 

She has half expected to see the barn abandoned, rotten and overgrown. Or for it to have been taken over by another family, Yennefer’s parents after all, had five girls and no sons to pass the farm to. Having the ownership passed on to some distant relation was not at all unexpected, and was one of the many reasons for her step-father's foul moods. 

But here she is, the youngest girl, no more than five when Yennefer was taken away, standing in front of her as a grown woman, marks of her age lining her face. 

Emilia steps forward with a concerned frown, but her eyes, their mother’s eyes, are kind. 

“Archie!” Her sister calls out to the shed, Yennefer’s horse huffs behind her and leans his neck down, pulling on the reigns to reach the dormant bushes of flowers that were planted near the fence, another new addition to her childhood home. 

Thinking of it as ever to have been her home left a bad taste in her mouth. 

She pulls the reigns back, the gelding snorts but yields. 

“Milady?” She turns back to the cause of her anxiety. 

A man with dirty blonde hair approaches her, his face is likewise kind, the crow's feet by his eyes deepening with age and smile lines set somewhere in his scraggly beard dusted with white. He wears a thick apron of leather over his clothes, wiping his hands on a dirty cloth that he then hooks onto his belt. 

“How can we help you?” 

Yennefer can stand it no longer. 

She turns back to the horse quickly and swings her leg over the saddle, with one final look at her sister, her _nephew_ , and ignoring their protests Yennefer urges the chestnut gelding around and away. 

\--- 

Her hope for a family has been ripped away long ago, she has given it up for a chance to be _something_ , to be more than her birthright as an ugly, bastard girl of a pig farmer, to be more than an eternal conduit beneath Aretuza. It was a choice she made, but it did not feel like one. 

Is it not cruel to be made to choose between one terrible outcome and another? 

Seeing her sister has left her with a confusing concoction of emotion, her young sister looks older than her, she has a child, children maybe. She has a husband. A family. Everything Yennefer was denied so long ago. 

When the Witcher brought that bard and a djinn’s seal, the choice is simple. 

Getting the Witcher out of the way is easy enough, getting the bard to make his last wish equally so. She did not however, expect for the mutant to deceive her, who thought she could have been this naïve all over again. 

He begs for her to abandon her plan, even as every inch of her body feels on the verge of being torn apart, like a doll pulling apart at the seams. 

But how could he understand? It is but another painful transformation for her to get what she wants. To take destiny into her own fucking hands. 

Yennefer throws her head back as another wrack of pain strikes her body like a flash of lightning, flowing down her spine, ripping and tearing and bending her spine backwards. Her knees ached as they pressed to the harsh wooden floor with the gravity of worlds, the intensity of it made her vision flash white. Her hands stung from the half-moon cuts on her palm as she fights to keep the djinn in her trap. 

Djinn is a creature of chaos, a blinding light in the webs of energy that flows all around them all. 

The nine candles lit around her, an extension of herself and her trap for the creature, waver in the hurricane winds but refuse to be extinguished. Yennefer keeps them aflame with pure force of will. 

They will last as long as she does. 

Her breath leaves her as if she is falling from the clouds, weightless. No air returns to take its place. Her lungs spasm, she shakes and wheezes. 

The djinn is trying to kill her. 

She can sense it’s anger, it’s rage. But Yennefer herself has enough of both. 

_You will not bind me, mortal._ It hisses like a serpent, as it slithers along the tendrils of her mind, a ghostly hand grasping at her being. 

She hears the creaking of the floorboards under unearthly stress. 

The windows shatter as something flies through it, she feels the thunder shake the room though it makes no sound. 

Her body feels both too heavy and too light at the same time, as if she is not of this world. 

_What would you do with such power, even should you attain it?_

Her ribs crackle as if there is a hand squeezing her torso, crushing her lungs, and though her mouth is open formulating words is a tremendous task. 

“Make your final wish, Witcher!” 

And he must have, because she feels a shift, a breaking free of bond fulfilled, like cutting a stem of a rose. For a moment, the djinn is in its own kind of freefall as it transcends from this world to another. For a second it releases her, the hand around her lungs loosens and slips away like a phantom. 

Yennefer will not let it escape. 

She screams in Elder until her voice grows hoarse, and chains of chaos form under her will like serpents of her own, a writhing magical net. She hears its howl of fury as it struggles against her, forced back into this world with a new vengeance, and when it was clear it can longer return to its world it returns with a clear, savage intent. 

It invades her body. 

Yennefer feels in control of it all, wrangling the otherworldly being, until she no longer is. 

Destiny is funny, should it choose to let her die this way. 

A panic overwhelms her, she imagines it is the same feral panic all creatures of this world feel. The mortal fear that binds them all. She will not die, she cannot die. 

The chains of her net slip from her grasp, she hears the djinni howling in the very corners of her soul, it grows bigger to fill in every space of her skin, bone, and sinew. 

It has been a long time since Yennefer has been truly afraid. 

A crack of splintering wood webs above her head, the stone walls follow suit. 

The roof collapses above her, and she watches it come down, entranced by true mortal terror. 

In that very moment of immediate realization that _this is it_ , a flare of chaos flashes through her, like a bucket upheaved as chaos spills over itself in its panic. 

Yennefer sees it in her mind’s eye, a red oak door. An office. 

And then she is gone, crashing onto hard stone floor with debris of the room littered around her, bumping into jars and vials with the ringing of glass, shelves shudder and metals clang and crash on stone. 

Lightning pain pierces her and her vision turns black. 

\--- 

Her back is throbbing, her mouth is dry as sandpaper, and she has a pounding headache that threatens the contents of her stomach. But beyond all that, what she is awoken by is the harsh sting above her breast, 

Yennefer opens her eyes. 

She blinks blearily at the light in the room while her hand, on instinct, comes up to the source of the pain, as soon as her fingertips brush the skin it shoots daggers into her chest. 

She sits up with a hiss, hands splaying against the soft bedsheets as she hunches forward and breathes in roughly, her lungs stutter. 

Yennefer looks around, the last thing she remembers is a collapsing ceiling and a djinn. 

But instead she is now in a lavish, meticulously clean room. There is a bowl and a pitcher of water at the bedside table, along with a stack of folded medical rags. 

She is hit with a sense of familiarity, shakily, she tests the range of her torso and shifts. The curses that leave her as the wound on her chest flares again would make a sailor blush. Yennefer brings a hand up gingerly. She is still in her silk shift, whoever has taken care of her did not see need to divest her of her clothing. 

She looks down, beyond the half translucent material, sees the red there. 

Yennefer tugs at the edge of the material at her breast and moves it to the side to reveal red puckered flesh freshly healing. 

There lies a magical seal, a nine-pointed star. 

“You have done many a reckless thing in your life, still, I could not have suspected you would go this far.” 

Yennefer shoots up at the terribly familiar voice, she grips the sheets fiercely, looking for purchase as her heart springs into action. Tucking her chin close she lets her hair fall around her face, she will not allow her traitorous breathing to betray her. Anxiety and exhilaration crawls up her spine. 

Who would have thought both excruciating moments of her life will have her portalling to this accursed place. 

She is doomed. 

Not allowing herself to betray the sudden dread that washes over her, she presses her lips together and hides behind her hair. Her pride winces at this, but the sheer overwhelming emotions that wrack in her chest need a moment to breathe, before she hides it behind rancor. 

“You do make a terrible habit of underestimating me.” 

Yennefer hears her scoff, a bout of nostalgia hits her at the sound, her heart lurches in her chest. 

She does not smile, but does allow her head to fall back, letting the light onto her face behind the parting curtain of raven hair, feels the tickle of it on her spine. Yennefer breathes in, testing the pain in her chest as she stretches. 

Not once does she look in the direction of the woman she longs for. 

It is so much harder when Tissaia speaks again, when her voice is stern but full of thinly veiled _c_ _oncern_. 

Yennefer’s fingers twitch in the sheets. 

“Foolish child.” 

Yennefer hums, unamused. 

“You seem happy to see me.” 

“I have no wish to play clean up every time your storms pass through my way. I warned you, Yennefer. And instead of seeing sense you saw fit to prove me right.” 

Yennefer’s teeth click together at that and she growls, finally looking towards the older sorceress, who stands at the side of the bed in her usual green gown, the pendant of Aretuza resting below her collarbones glints angrily in the light coming from a nearby window. 

“Twice now you’ve come to my rescue, Rectoress. How noble.” 

She sits straight up in the bed, the superiority it is meant to translate may be lost in translation by the fluffy pillows and the silk duvet she is coddled by, she shrugs off the duvet and lets it puddle around her waist. 

Tissaia inhales deeply and tilts her chin up, exposing the pale line of her throat not hidden by the collar of her dress that Yennefer’s traitor eyes latch onto. 

She wants to know so badly to know what the woman is thinking. 

The Rectoress’ eyes close briefly to the ceiling as if in a prayer. _Give me strength._

A shudder runs through Yennefer, and she stares at the older sorceress in surprise. 

“What?” She says, her voice is thick. 

Tissaia merely looked back down at her, equally confused but with a signature frown and a raised eyebrow. 

The look she gives her makes her suddenly nervous. 

“Did you -” Yennefer swallows. “What did you say?” 

“Must I repeat this entire conversation I just had the displeasure of partaking in?” 

She frowns, bites her lip, meanwhile her mind whirls with confusion as she tries to make sense of what she heard. 

Seeing as Tissaia looks as confused as she is, she changes the subject. 

“What happened? How did I get here?” 

“I was curious to know that as well, my private quarters are warded against portals. And yet you, somehow, evaded them.” 

“Where was the portal?” 

Tissaia’s look is full of hidden meanings. 

“In my personal study.” Yennefer’s mind is suddenly bombarded by memories of a night decades ago, when she was girl seeking Tissaia’s approval. 

Feaneweidd may open portals that can never be closed. 

Yennefer is silent for a long time, brought back only when she hears the woman move to sit by her side, she feels the bed shift and lean her towards the new weight. The whole thing feels so intimate she has to swallow drily and hope to banish the heat in her chest that was not just from the brand on her skin. 

She watches, prey watching a predator, as the older sorceress grabs the medical cloth and dips it into the bowl of clean water at the table, squeezing the water out with a practiced hand. 

The trickle of water is the only sound in deafening silence of the room, it should not be so hypnotic. 

Yennefer watches it all intensely, watches the water drip from pale, slender fingers, something twists deep within her at the sight. 

The hand hovers in the air, waiting for something. 

It doesn’t make sense, she is perfectly able to do this herself, her pride bucks against it, and yet, despite it all. 

She meets Tissaia’s gaze and nods, barely. 

Tissaia’s hand land on the skin of her chest, and she refuses to close her eyes at the contact, this is not some shitty two crown romance novel. 

At some point she has broken the barely bound skin of her new seal and a trail of blood flows down her breast, under the curve and to her navel. 

She can no longer meet Tissaia’s eyes, staring down at the hand intently. 

The cloth is dabbed against the blood quickly, gently. The path of the sponge leaves a wet trail that leaves her skin cool as it dries. 

“You appeared through a portal of an unknown classification, made a mess of my laboratory, and brought a storm of chaos in your wake as the djinn tried to break free.” 

Then the hand is gone again and she hears the water in the bowl disperse, then the familiar trickle as her nemesis wrings out the excess. 

Yennefer absorbs the information, a part of her screaming to tear the rag out of her hand and the other purring at the contact, despite the circumstance, despite the ludicrousness of it all. 

“It took me the whole night to contain the djinn’s magic, it could not leave, lest it tear you apart on its way out. So, I was forced to seal it in.” 

So it is done then, she has absorbed the djinn. 

Her eyes close at the revelation, or maybe at the return of the foreign touch. 

It is so hard to consider the implications when she is doing all she can to keep the heat at her neck at bay, lest it spread to her chest and to her face, and then, then there would be no hiding from Tissaia de Vries. 

Instead she stays silent, hoping that the woman will blame the goosebumps on the cold. 

“Good of you to care, Rectoress.” 

Yennefer finally says, she knows her voice is a touch too breathy so she reinforces it with steel. 

“We have been over this, have we not? Just because you like to paint me as some villain does not make it true.” 

Tissaia’s voice is sharp, much like it was the last time they saw each other, in Rinde. Still, the wet cloth is light and fleeting as it brushes down her ribs to her belly, following the trail of blood. 

She can feel her nipples pucker under the thin fabric of her shift, her jaw aches from the force with which she is keeping it shut. 

Yennefer closes her eyes briefly at the contrast that is doing things to her heart. She cannot help what next slips out. 

“It _is_ good to see you, Tissaia.” 

The admittance feels traitorous. 

She feels the bed shift, and finally looks to her right at the woman beside her, who is in turn leaning back to appraise her, Tissaia sat straight and poised as if she were perched on a throne, not on a bed playing nurse. 

The older sorceress’ eyes drift down, 

“I had wished you would return under different circumstances.” Yennefer is confused by the tingling at the base of her neck, she frowns. 

“But, I am glad you are here.” 

“Am I hearing this right?” 

“Don’t push it, piglet.” 

Yennefer tilts her back and laughs. 

“It is what I do best.” 

“Of all talents to be proud of.” 

She stares up at the canopy of the bed, her tongue darts out to wet her lip. 

“You missed me, admit it.” 

Tissaia clasps her hands together and stands up languidly, she is wearing the same dress she wore in Rinde, the shimmering fabric pinched at her waist before the skirt flares, the same stifling collar that Yennefer knows from experience hides unblemished, pale skin. Tissaia is always hidden behind all those buttons, all that fabric. 

Yennefer’s hands itch. 

“What will you do now?” 

Yennefer shrugs, but inside her mind is turning, she feels not so different now than she did before the ritual. She needs to access the djinn’s power; only then can she finish what she started and restore her womb. 

Her hands slip down to cradle her stomach at the thought. 

Tissaia frowns. 

"Of all the foolishness – Yennefer.” 

Tissaia sighs, looks away for a moment. And Yennefer flares at the thought that she may have disappointed the woman yet again, she does _not_ care what the old hag thinks. 

And just like many times before, she reacts with anger. 

“I want my choice back.” 

Cold blue meets raging violet. 

“You _chose_ to undergo the enchantment.” 

Yennefer laughs, if only because it was that or set this whole fucking room on fire. It has been decades, and still this woman does not understand. Must she spell this out? 

“What choice was that? Life-long deformity or subservience?” 

Tissaia tilts her head, her eyes soften into that look that almost feels like _care_. 

“Choices in life are never simple. Can you not see what you are doing?” 

That look does terribly things to Yennefer, she will not let her break her down. 

“You merely wish to keep me bound to chains.” 

“I wish you would, for once, listen to me!” 

As soon as the words hit her Yennefer feels a thrum of chaos erupt from within her, it surges past an open gate behind her breastbone and floods her senses, it stops her next retort in its tracks, her mouth shuts with a click and she is left winded. 

She stares at Tissaia in disbelief. 

The Rectoress’ scowl remains, but as the silence stretches between them and Yennefer knows the woman can see her, shaken, because Tissaia’s face shifts. 

“Yennefer?” 

“What did you do.” 

At Tissaia’s silence, Yennefer rises from the bed in her translucent shift, she doesn’t care about the disapproving tut of the rectoress as she ignores her bedrest orders, or that the belt of her shift is loose around her waist and she is nude beneath as she approaches the woman slowly, dangerously. 

Tissaia’s chin tilts up to meet her eyes as Yennefer towers over her. 

“What is happening, Yennefer?” 

But Yennefer doesn’t reply, all she can focus on is the /whispers/. 

Yennefer turns from Tissaia, her heart is racing, her palms are sweaty, she stands over the bedside table and leans over the bowl of water, pink now, with her blood. Her fingers tighten on the wood, it groans under her hands and her fingers complain with the force of her grip. 

The anger, familiar anger, grows within her as she hopes, prays, that she is wrong. 

But she can feel it, the whispers, the wants and wishes of her master, half-formed and brewing in the mind of the sorceress standing silent behind her. 

“You bound the djinn with your magic, and it responds to your command, and by extension, me.” 

She stares at the bowl until the wood might be set aflame with the fervor of her rage. Yennefer feels the urge to throw it off the table and hear it crack, as if it is the one to wrong her. She grabs it with both hands, grabs it even harder once she sees her hands are shaking. 

“Did you know this would happen?” 

Tissaia’s voice is as cool as ever, but Yennefer hears the waiver when the woman responds. 

“Which part? That you’d appear in my study in the middle of the night barely breathing? No, when it comes to djinns not even I know enough to know the consequences of binding one. The only mage to achieve such a thing kept his secrets well.” 

She thinks back to a time she was so angry she broke a mirror. 

And the time she set the greenhouse ablaze and watched it burn. 

She remembers the emptiness she felt, the helplessness when she lost control, the disappointment that drops in her gut with the weight of lead. 

Yennefer sighs, the fight leaves her with that single breath as she lets the bowl go and turns around to face Tissaia. 

“You have two wishes left.” 

She knows it, feels it in her bones. 

She will give it to destiny, it has a sense of humor. 

“I would suggest you make them better than your first.” 

Tissaia watches her, Yennefer would give everything she has to read her mind in this moment. 

“How do you know this?” 

“I can feel them.” _The half-baked wants in your soul that may form into wishes._ But she doesn’t say that part. Something tells her the rectoress will not be thrilled at the revelation. 

Tissaia’s eyes shutter, her lips thin. 

“You should get some rest.” 

And damn that woman, because Yennefer feels the compulsory pull that drags her back into bed. She stumbles towards it with none of her usual grace. What the fuck. 

Tissaia watches her oddly, her eyes brows were stuck higher than Yennefer has ever seen them. 

_Listen to me._

Yennefer seethes, her heart drops with dread straight into the pit of her stomach, she will be damned if she allows this woman to command her. 

“Do not presume to tell me what to do, I am no longer a student here, _Tissaia._ ” 

Nevertheless, she fixes the sheets around her casually, hoping the woman does not see how pale her knuckles are nor here the tearing of the sheets as she grabs at them with a little too much force. She will not give any hint to the woman’s sudden influence over her. 

She would become utterly insufferable. 

Tissaia does not comment on her sudden burst of obedience, her eyebrows, eventually, come down in the silence of the room. She tilts her chin, and before she can get too suspicious, Yennefer lifts her head up in the response. 

“Now, let us get this over with. Make your wishes and free me.” 

The older sorceress looks at her with thinly veiled amusement, and alright, maybe it does look comical to be commanding the Archmistress of Aretuza from her own surrendered bed, in a nest of fluffy pillows and a thick burgundy duvet. She will give it to the woman for not laughing her off outright. 

Tissaia seemingly decides to play along, and Yennefer almost sags in relief before the woman’s next words turns her spine into ice. 

The rectoress shakes her head. 

“I need to think, Yennefer. This dilemma is not one we can solve easily,” 

“There is no need to think, Tissaia, release me.” Yennefer tries to not let the desperation soak through into her words. 

“Make your wishes and I will be out of your life once more.” 

“No.” 

Silence. 

Yennefer’s ears ring, her voice grows low, almost a growl. 

“What.” 

And then Tissaia is back to being the rectoress, threading her fingers in front of her, Yennefer knows it well at this point. That damned woman only does it when she decides to be stubborn. 

“A djinn granting one’s wishes is always dangerous, never mind when that djinn is _you._ ” 

The bedside table and it’s contents crash to the floor with a sharp cry of ceramic, wood, and glass, and the bloody water spreads along the stone floor with a mere wave of Yennefer’s hand. 

Lest she let this woman forget the damage Yennefer can do, even confined to a bed. 

But the rectoress does not budge. 

“By all means abuse my furniture.” 

That same droll, it drives Yennefer mad. 

She snarls. 

“Free me, Rectoress. Don’t you dare condemn me to servitude because you don’t trust me. I refuse to be bound to anyone, especially _you_.” 

“And what will you do once I make my wishes? What will you do with your newfound power?” 

“I will do whatever I see fit with it, far away from you, so don’t worry your head over it.” 

“I cannot escape you Yennefer, nor the consequences of your gallivanting adventures across the Continent. Aedirn. What about that Kaedwen ambassador? Your little brush with burglary from the Lyrian Count?"

Despite the circumstance, Yennefer smirks. 

“That unicorn is far more useful in my possession than with some dusty old man who keeps it as a trophy.” 

Tissaia is not amused. 

“That is the chaos you summon as a mage, I cannot begin to imagine what you would get up to with the power of the djinn.” 

It stung more than it should have, to know that Tissaia does not trust her. And then she reminds herself that she does not care what the rectoress thinks of her, and the ache is replaced with something more familiar. 

“Then wish me to not harm anyone if you’re so concerned for your precious Continent.” 

Tissaia throws her hands up, 

“And what consequence will such a wish have? No, there are far too many variables to be considered here. What if I curse you with an ill-thought wish?” 

Yennefer sneers. 

“My, who’d have thought you gave a damn.” 

“Yennefer.” 

“Tissaia.” 

Tissaia tilts her head, and suddenly, all the previous emotions drain from her face like a door shutting in Yennefer’s face. 

Yennefer is suddenly transported to a time, decades ago, when she woke up after her botched attempt to take her own life with the rectoress sitting by her bed and telling her that no one would blink should she die. 

Tissaia speaks with that perfect, commanding voice that carries across the room. 

“We must consider all outcomes, lest we doom ourselves or worse, our world to volatile magic. Wishes have consequences.” 

That tone brokers no argument. 

“A djinn can control the way the wishes are granted.” 

Yennefer is desperate, desperate to get away from Aretuza, get away from her. 

“And can you? Can you control it?” 

Silence. 

Tissaia sighs again, Yennefer thinks this is the most she’d heard the woman exhale in her lifetime. 

“Sta-” Just as Yennefer’s flesh threatens to break into goosebumps again, Tissaia stops herself, considers something, then, “I will have a room prepared for you.” 

Yennefer throws a shoulder back nonchalantly. 

“And if I refuse to stay here?” 

“Then I will not stop you. But, Yennefer.” Yennefer meets Tissaia’s eyes, the rectoress considers her quietly for a moment. “Let me help you.” 

And just like that, she must stay and let the woman help her, because Tissaia’s first wish was for Yennefer to listen to her. 

Does the Rectoress realize the extent of her power? Yennefer hopes not, and so she acts as nonchalantly as she can, trying not to betray the seething anger in her heart, it aches. Her hand comes up back to the pointed star on her chest. 

Her hand hovers over it but does not touch, she looks down, tired, deflated. 

She hears Tissaia’s footsteps turn, slowly, and the click of the door as it shut. 

Yennefer falls back into the pillows and brings her shaking hands to her face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back at Aretuza...and Yennefer's hooped. 
> 
> See you later! ;)


	5. You Flee My Dream Come the Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the rating has went up...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left a comment and a kudos, it was a complete joy to read everyone's feedback and what you loved or thought about the story and where it is going. 
> 
> I couldn't be happier being part of this small, loyal fandom. <3
> 
> Thank you also for everyone's patience, this chapter did take me longer to write, and I am not quite happy with it in it's entirety, so might brush it up at some point. 
> 
> But please enjoy!

Anger is an ocean, and it is so easy to get lost in the current of it. Forget the outside world and focus only on kicking out your legs and keeping above the water. There was a time that it comforted her, the strength of it, the invincibility of being one with those waves. 

But the riptide always comes, eventually. 

Sleep evades her now, though the djinn has drained all energy from her body, and the rectoress sucked out the rest. The anger grows in her chest with a painful heat behind her breastbone, her fingertips pull at the rich fabric of the duvet. 

The anger was tempered by Tissaia’s presence, as it often had before. What a cruel irony, to have the wind that flares her fire to also be what sputters it. 

Perhaps she can blame her sleeplessness on the choir that reverberates inside her skull like the ceiling of a theatre. It reminds her of the murmur of the King’s court, indistinct chatter that swells and drowns out her thoughts. 

She sighs, a long drawn out exhale. 

Yennefer hears the creak of the door opening, expecting the rectoress to reappear once more she steels herself and sits up, wincing at the pull above her left breast. 

Instead, a woman in her thirties is walking towards the bed. 

Since when does Aretuza employ servants for the magical academy? 

The woman gives her an odd look as she approaches, wearing a simple dress and hair up in a simple updo. Yennefer is reminded of those dresses she was forced into when she was still a student here. 

She cannot help it, she lounges back into the pillows and stretches languidly as if she were right at home under the woman’s obvious scrutiny and bright, curious eyes. 

Let them talk, it might make the older sorceress peeved, and well, she could use a couple more grey hairs, it is absolutely unfair how ravishing she looks even decades later, as if time hasn’t touched her in centuries. 

Then again, thinking of the grey streaks swimming in the rich brown that Yennefer just wants to thread around her fingers makes her stomach jump and her lips dry. 

Yennefer grins, and it must have been nefarious based on the servant’s nervous scitter. 

The woman looks mildly petrified, with eyes lowered to the floor as she shuffles close in a dignified manner only Tissaia’s servants one could expect to have. She hears for the bedside table that had once held water pitcher and the rest of the medical kit, now on the floor. 

Yennefer has the grace to feel guilty. 

As the woman bends to pick up the pieces with a huff that is almost too quiet for Yennefer to have heard, she lifts a hand with a weak flick of the wrist, the tickle of chaos. 

She smiles demurely at the quiet gasp of the woman hidden by the height of the bed. 

“I wish I could do that.” 

Yennefer looks back up at the ceiling of the bed canopy, her smile dims. 

“It’s not real.” Beyond the enchantments and the illusions, Yennefer still sees it, the hunch of her back, the pull of her crooked jaw, the misery of her life. 

For all the magic she possesses, it cannot give her what she wants. 

Power will not give her back all life has taken from her by virtue of her birth. Chaos will not give her a family’s love. 

Her hands find her stomach once more. 

Maybe it still can. 

The servant leaves as quietly as she had come, leaving Yennefer to stew in her thoughts. 

Her cursed fate, forever to be bound to Tissaia de Vries, an unyielding statue at the whims of the Continent’s politics and the Chapter. The thought of it pinned her to the bed with exhaustion, her chest pangs with the discomfit of it all. Her jaw aches from her grinding teeth, it reminds her of its unnatural swell, long ago. 

Yennefer rebels against the memory, pushes herself off the mattress and twists out of bed, the floor is cold on her bare feet. She has rested enough, she is in control of the wishes. 

She will not allow that interfering woman to get the better of her. 

At least she can snoop through the room that has always been forbidden before. 

Tissaia’s bedchamber bore her mark, rows of shelving filled with stacks of books that threaten to spill over the edges and onto the floor, and yet still, somehow, they appear organized and meticulously put together. 

She lets her hand brush over the stacks, fingers flitting over the scrolls of parchment and their aged edges. Yennefer walks along them, grounding herself in the muffled sound of her steps, and the whispers of papers. 

Her fingers land on a solid metal cylinder, a scope. 

Who’d have thought Tissaia de Vries had a penchant for astromancy. 

Yennefer should have known though, that woman is anal about the whereabouts of anyone and everyone causing a ruckus on the farthest reaches of their world. 

Her lips pull down, she dismisses the urge to _accidentally_ let it fall of its ledge. 

She is _not_ petty, despite what that woman insisted. 

She pulls out scrolls that seem of interest, grabbing tomes by their spines, pulling at letters until her fingers speed up in some kind of manic frenzy. Tissaia de Vries does not deserve privacy, after that woman has once again invaded her life and bound her. 

And well, if Yennefer wants to find some incriminating evidence that Tissaia has a scandalous side, well, is it so wrong? 

Her search is halted by the choir in her hair reaching a feverish pitch, her hand slackens around the spine of a grimoire and it slides between her fingers and thuds on the floor. 

She reaches her shaking hand instead to rub her forehead against the fullness of it. 

Yennefer is filled with worry. 

Worry of all kinds, worries for Aretuza, for the Continent, for Nazair. And Nilfgaard. 

Yennefer threads her fingers in her scalp and pulls furiously, trying to offset the pain. 

She has felt the rectoress’ wants previously, when they teased at her mind and clambered for attention. But they have yet to become this distracting. 

Yennefer fists her hands and conjures a dress, stepping into it easily and lacing the fabric tight, she sees the paleness of her knuckles and stills for a moment. Tilts her chin up and breathes out. 

She will wait this out, will not betray her game, her only trump card against the rectoress’ influence. 

Not unless forced. 

Even if it means Yennefer having to process the ghosts of eternal dissatisfaction that haunt Tissaia de Vries. 

Of course Tissaia de Vries continues to test her. 

Her own calls for strategically binding her time had worn thin by the time the darkness in the windows had bid her to light the sconces in the room. They flicker now, hushed in the face of their creator’s growing temper. 

Tissaia has not returned, and though the murmurs had quieted some time ago they flare up unexpectedly and drive Yennefer on edge. 

Does the woman think her to be some abiding dog? Locked up and forgotten about until there is need for her? 

The thought drives Yennefer finally from where she had lounged back in a chaise, stacks of scrolls and books now haphazardly stacked at the side table at a threat of collapse near where she had sat. Some of the scrolls rustle in protest as she stalks past them on the floor, heading for the only door. 

Yennefer grasps the handle with force enough to rip it from it’s base, the door swings open. 

A once familiar, now strange office greets her, illuminated only by a handful of candles scattered on the rectoress’ table, occupied by a figure hunched over the desk. 

Yennefer's bravado dissolves, she halts at the doorway. 

When the older soreceress is awake and dangerous, she knows that each and everything she does she will be countered spectacularly and with no small bite. 

But the sight of the intimidating woman calm and gentle asleep strikes Yennefer, at a loss, her hands fidget at her sides. 

She closes the door, quietly, and takes a couple steps forward. 

As she approaches, Yennefer takes stock of the open-faced book currently occupied by Tissaia’s cheek. 

Yennefer scoffs, but it lacks it’s usual harshness, a mere puffed breath at the sight, both ridiculous and endearing. 

Her eyes stray to the stray locks of brown that have deserted from the rectoress’ bun, the glint of silver pins taunt her. 

Her fingers uncurl, as flighty as a bird, and she brushes the grainy texture of the desktop, her own hesitance alarms her. She brushes her knuckles against the clothed elbow splayed, peering at the woman’s face half shadowed by the tall collar of that stifling, cursed gown. 

The elbow nudges back at her, she startles and steps back. 

Her hand draws back as if stung, backhanding the ink pot off the edge. 

Tissaia jolts up at the shatter, wisps of hair falling over her cheeks and nose. 

Yennefer crosses her arms in front of her, trapping her traitorous hands. 

The Rectoress palms the desk savagely, looking straight at Yennefer. 

Yennefer does her best to ignore the blurriness in them as the rectoress blinks it back. 

“You know, it’s a terribly big bed. Plenty of room for two. Though it is commendable of you to seek to preserve my virtue.” 

Tissaia’s lips thin. 

“Or do you snore?” 

The woman drops her face into her hands in a decidedly un-de Vries fashion, following up with a groan. 

“Enough.” 

Yennefer feels compelled to keep her lips shut. Another wave of annoyance passes through her. Yennefer pushed away the fondness that arose when she noticed the crease of paper that left a pink line on the woman’s cheek. 

Her hand, no longer able to resist the itching fingertips, reaches out to trace it, and the look Tissaia pins her with between retreating fingers halts her heart mid-beat. 

“Don’t.” 

Yennefer feels her hand falls back down as if locked in with magic, the chaos within her reels against the bonds of the djinn. Her mood sours. 

Tissaia leans back quickly, resting against the back of the chair as she flips the book closed and clasped her hands together in front of her. 

“I’ve been researching our problem.” 

Yennefer rolls her eyes, 

“Ever the scholar.” 

She lounges back into the chair across from Tissaia’s desk, stacks her bare feet onto the tabletop, brushing a stamp box aside. The rectoress eyes her feet with pursed lips. 

“There would not be a ‘problem’ if you simply wish me free.” 

Tissaia hums, her eyebrows draw downwards. 

“There would not be a problem if you had practiced restraint and foresight in the first place.” She waves her hand towards the offending limbs. “Down.” 

Her feet drop so suddenly she has to wince at the pang in her heels, Yennefer draws back into the chair, grinds her teeth. 

Even Tissaia is surprised it seems, by how fast she blinks. 

“How is Fringilla doing?” A change of subject, the worries about southern empire flit about her. 

“Fringilla has helped unify Nilfgaard.” Tissaia says simply, tersely. 

Yennefer tilts her chin and raises an eyebrow, she can play with silence too. 

After a moment, Tissaia seems to concede. “But through means which I fear may cause more conflict.” 

Yennefer smirks wryly. 

“Nothing like fanaticism to bring people together.” 

And she can feel Tissaia then, can hear the whispers slip out between them, ones Tissaia does not say aloud. Want to go to Nilfgaard, want to correct Fringilla, want to warn the Chapter. So many wants, and still Tissaia does nothing with them. 

Her smirk disappears, Yennefer looks down momentarily and blinks past the noise. 

The sensations are so overwhelming she rises out of the chair, her eyes fall on the goblet of wine, the familiarity of it stings, but nevertheless draws her to it. 

Yennefer grabs the curved metal handle of the pitcher, “There are some things we can agree on then, I am no longer your student, I have spectacularly curtailed your expectations. And,” 

She fills two goblets to a tasteful level and offers one across the desk, her hand looms in the space between them as Tissaia watches her. 

“We both have a reason to drink.” 

After a long drawn out moment of Tissaia’s close guarded eyes pinned on the offending goblet, she surprises Yennefer. 

Deft fingers pluck the cup out of her hand. 

Yennefer sits back, fighting a smirk. 

Unsuccesfuly it seems, because Tissaia’s eyebrow upticks in response. 

They drink in silence for a long time, Yennefer enjoys the taste of the deep Toussaint red, letting the richness of it soak on her tongue and hums sinfully as it develops. She hums, and sighs, and simply enjoys the wine, and enjoys communicating in every way how much she enjoys this particular year. 

Tissaia does not react to this, but she cannot hide the tick near her eye. 

When she does not relent, the rectoress finally interjects. 

“Stop that.” 

And Yennefer nearly chokes on the wine as her chaos responds and bids her to stop it, quite literally. 

That seems to cross another line. 

Yennefer startles further by the slam of a goblet down onto the desk and the scrape of the Archmistress’ chair as Tissaia rises. 

“Stop it!” Yennefer stares at her, helpless, angry at the burning of alcohol closing her throat and overcome with a plethora of sensations at having Tissaia’s voice waver. 

“Stop what?” 

Her voice is hoarse, maybe she does not like that wine after all. 

Tissaia flounders for a moment, waves her hand as if to summarize _all that Yennefer is_. 

“Whatever you are doing!” 

“What?” 

“Listening to me! Stop it!” 

Yennefer stares. Tissaia is the most agitated she has ever seen her. 

Finally, the Rectoress draws herself up to her full height, still a solid several inches shorter than Yennefer should she choose to stand up. 

“It is a most unnatural feeling.” The Archmistress is back to her commanding tone, despite the ridiculousness of this whole situation. 

Yennefer soaks in the sight. 

“Tissaia de Vries” Yennefer all but purrs, leaning back lanquidly onto the chair arms. “Do you take pleasure in my misbehavior?” 

“I was beginning to worry the djinn took your sense. It seems I have simply underestimated your pleasure in provoking me.” 

Yennefer rolls her eyes and leans in across the desk, meeting Tissaia’s leveled look. 

“I am flattered. But this is _your_ doing, Rectoress. You wished me to listen to you.” 

Flashing her ace so early was worth seeing the look on Tissaia’s face. 

“I did not intend -” 

She laughs, and it is not kind. 

“Who would have thought I’d see the day Tissaia de Vries does not think something through.” 

Tissaia stares at the wall nearest to them, only the whitening of knuckles betraying her, she sits there, as still and cool as a monolith. And Yennefer resents her for her composure, all she wants is to get an inkling for whatever is happening inside the woman’s head. 

Warning bells rung in her head at that one. 

Scratch that, Yennefer wants nothing to do with her. 

“I sent for Geoffrey Monck’s works. It may hold information we need to release the djinn and have you bound no longer.” 

Seems the rectoress does not wish to dwell on that for too long. 

“Have you stopped to consider if I want the djinn freed?” 

Silence. 

Yennefer scoffs out a laugh, and it comes out even harsher than the last. 

“What am I thinking? My wants have always been beneath you.” 

“We do not have the luxury of wants, Yennefer.” 

“Bullshit.” This was starting to approach a different memory, familiar and painful at the same time. 

Tissaia sighs, unclasps her hands and rests her palms on the tabletop. 

“Why? Why do you want a baby?” 

The older sorceress sounds both frustrated and curious at the same time, and totally uncaring about all the whiplash she is giving Yennefer. 

Yennefer regards her from across the desk, seeking comfort in the distance. 

Tissaia is not the only one who can sidestep questions. 

“How about a trade? A truth for a truth.” 

She sees Tissaia stiffen, something like victory writhes in her chest, she holds it close. 

“You asked me, in Rinde, how we got like this.” Yennefer tilts her head, staring directly into blue guarded eyes. 

And Yennefer thinks maybe there is value in some honesty, a minute fraction, a thread. 

“Why did you avoid me?” 

Tissaia does not answer, Yennefer feels the stirring anger again, always angry. 

“What were you afraid of?” For a moment she thinks Tissaia does not know what she is talking about, she is suddenly struck shy. The edges of hot embarrassment rising from her neck to her cheeks imagining that the night that has haunted her for years was nothing but a blip in Tissaia’s memory, so unimportant it might as well be nonexistent. 

But then. 

“That was decades ago, Yennefer.” 

The relief Yennefer feels is treacherous, her tongue feels thick in her mouth. 

“Time does not release you from truth.” 

Tissaia snaps. 

“Nor does it release me from your unending pestering!” 

Never has she seen the older sorceress so agitated, and though the distress almost halts Yennefer, this is the most the Rectoress has shown of herself. The give is addicting. 

Yennefer stands up, slowly, stretching out languidly to her full height as she taps a hand against the archmistress’ desk. 

"Tissaia just tell me why, spare me from this burden, for my sake. I know you make such effort to present yourself as someone who feels nothing, steel for skin, nothing under that stifling gown but care for this wretched world.” 

Tissaia sits back, blue eyes burning. 

“But.” 

Yennefer swallows shakily but presses on. 

“I wish to be released from it.” 

Because it has haunted Yennefer for so long, she needs it, needs to hear it. What exactly, she is not sure. 

“Yennefer.” It sounds like it pains Tissaia to say it, the pit in Yennefer’s stomach flutters in response. 

Yet the older soreceress does not turn to her, even as she breathes out Yennefer’s name, her unwavering eyes are pinned forward, leaving Yennefer to appreciate her sharp features. 

She steps even closer, rounding the corner to Tissaia’s side now, her fingers still brushing the grainy wood, seeking purchase though her body feels light enough to fly away at any moment. 

“You won’t free me from your clutches, you cruel woman” The whisper falls from Yennefer’s lips unbidden, desperate, angry. 

Heart hammering at a pace that leaves her dizzy, because Tissaia’s silence always speaks. 

If only she could hear it like she had before, decades ago. 

“At least free me from the questions that taunt me in my dreams.” 

She does not expect how fast Tissaia can move, she rises from her chair like a puppet on strings, baring her palms on the table and staring down. Yennefer’s eyes stray from the lithe, trembling hands to the rising swell of Tissaia’s chest, garbed in that armor of thick velvet shifting up and down hushed and desperate. 

Slowly, Tissaia gathers herself, those hands smooth the fabric covering her stomach, palms resting there, threading together until the knuckles turn white. 

Only then, as Yennefer’s eyes trace each inch from those hands and up to blue eyes on fire, does she realize how fast she is breathing herself. 

There they stand, mirrors of each other. 

Yennefer feels the thrill run up her spine. 

Then Tissaia’s hands drop, and she steps back, and Yennefer feels that distance as starkly as she had decades ago. 

“You must leave.” 

The magical pull of the djinn is like an incoming tide, for the first time, she finds the strength to fight it, stepping towards Tissaia instead. 

“Yennefer.” The waver in her voice floods Yennefer’s senses. Because it was dark, and desperate, and cracking with emotion that Yennefer wants to drown in. 

It makes Yennefer fumble with her control, the djinn tugs harder. it stirs Yennefer’s anger at the command. 

Made worse by the knowledge that Tissaia knows the power of her commands and is giving them regardless. 

No, she will not let the woman run from her again. 

“You must. Please.” 

Damn her. 

Yennefer sags against that whispered plea, and her body acts against her will and leads her to step back, though all she wants to do is step _forward_ , into Tissaia, her regal posture, her back straight and ready to fight. 

Instead she marches out the door, fuming, fighting, glaring back at the woman standing as dignified as ever, for as long as she is able, adrift along the currents of a river in the spring thaw. Helpless against its pull. 

It is entirely infuriating, the lack of control. 

She closes the door harshly behind her and revels in the thud it leaves behind. 

And perhaps Yennefer should not be blamed for what comes next. 

\--- 

She finds the room prepared for her, scaring a passing by servant until the poor woman turned pale and fled her sight with a hasty curtsy. 

Yennefer steels herself as she storms in, her new assignment is more spacious than when she was a student. 

It holds a hearth, a small library of books lining the wall, a table tucked to the side that holds a pitcher of water and stacked glasses, the wall beside it is draped with fabric of a colorful landscape to ward off the coast chill. 

A bed stood at the center; headboard pressed to the wall. 

She fists her shaking hands, focuses on the rumbling chaos storming inside of her, like water in a bucket flailing in the wind and spilling over. 

The djinn’s hand is still there, hidden beneath it all until Tissaia strikes again. 

No, she will not be at her mercy. 

Yennefer’s pride cannot bare it, nor can her sanity. 

She will make the Archmistress spend her wishes, force her hand into wishing her free. 

Yennefer has grown quite adept at convincing. 

Their link is easy to find, Yennefer feels Tissaia’s distress, the overwhelming wave of emotion that she could not decipher pricked at her until she is forced to withdraw. She waits, long into the night until the moon is tall and streaking light through a nearby window and onto the bed Yennefer has seated herself on. 

The noise quiets eventually, the only tell that Tissaia is probably asleep. 

She has not spent the whole day moping, despite what the rectoress might think. 

And there is no better moment than this, in the silence of the night, Yennefer is impatient. 

Testing the link between herself and Tissaia, the whispers of wishes and wants that have grown quieter and leave only a path for her to follow. It is an odd feeling, to discover a secret passage to a mind so vast and protected it should be impregnable. 

And to a regular mage, it would be. 

She persists, closes her eyes, follows the link of magic. 

Yennefer steals into Tissaia’s dreams like dipping into a calm lake on a moonless night, the darkness beneath her would be overwhelming. She holds her breath as she submerges, her skin tingling with goosebumps as the chaos embraces her. 

When she resurfaces into a room full of debauchery and undulating bodies, it reminds her of the hall in the mayor’s house in Rinde. Couples of twos, threes, and fours arranged along the room like confection at a feast. 

Yennefer had to blink twice to believe it all, her breath catches. 

And there, in the middle of it all, reclining on a chaise of dark velvet is Tissaia. 

Yennefer’s next breath escapes in a soft hiss, the woman is a vision. 

The next thing she realizes is that the stone floor is cool on her knees, and that she is kneeling in front of the raised chaise occupied by the rectoress, absent of her usual stifling gown, fitted in a cream colored robe of soft lace that makes Yennefer’s mouth water. 

To her surprise the dream doesn’t seem to jar Tissaia, reclined back as if she were an empress and everyone in the room is beneath her, even as it swells with soft songs of pleasure. 

it is meant to be a fabrication of her fantasies after all, instead Tissaia turns to her, and she is pinned under scorching blue eyes and the most wicked smile that set her heart racing, clanging against the cage of her ribs. 

Yennefer wets her lips, staring up at the woman before her. 

The smile softens, and so Tissaia’s sharp features as the woman brings her hand forward and reaches out towards her, the soft, pale hand that has haunted Yennefer’s own dreams touches her cheek with a whisper of contact. 

Yennefer is pinned under a gaze of both pain and wonder. 

“Even here you haunt me.” 

Yennefr swallows heavily, all strength to respond gone as fingertips brush her jaw, the first touch prompting a deep, breathy exhale as it marks a path down her neck and lines her skin with sparks. 

Yennefer tilts her head to the side, yearning for more. 

The soft touch pauses to rest beneath her collarbone, just above the swell of her trembling chest as she struggles to control her breathing. Tissaia is staring at the spot under her hand, and Yennefer follows her gaze down. 

The older sorceress is tracing the starred mark on her chest, fingers brushing along the eight points and leaving a trail of heat beneath Yennefer’s skin, her blood rises to meet the touch and she is suffused with heat, it spreads up her neck and down her spine. 

Tissaia hums thoughtfully, and something so simple should not send a dark coil of heat below her navel. 

Yennefer is tempted to just let the dream play out and have the woman for the night, but she resists and tries to push through with her mission. 

She scans the unfamiliar architecture of the room, “Where are we?” 

Tissaia’s mouth creeps up as she lays back languidly, her hand drops and Yennefer mourns its absence while the rectoress looks around, seemingly unbothered by the withering bodies around them, a smile plays at the woman’s lips and Yennefer is drawn to it. 

“Beauclair.” 

One of the women, whose face is unclear and blurry with the haziness of dreams breaks away from her partner and saunters over to Tissaia, who’s eyes return to watch Yennefer, a thrill of heat passes through as their eyes lock. 

The unknown woman lounges on the chaise behind Tissaia and rests a hand on her shoulder, 

Yennefer watches Tissaia shrug a shoulder to let the creamy robe slip, pale skin bared right before her eyes, overtaken only by a stranger’s caress. 

Yennefer’s palms protest at the sharp nails pressing half moons as she watches with a rising possessiveness she hopes to never revisit, it startles even her. 

Tissaia must notice, ever watchful, even in her dreams. 

Because she graces Yennefer with a genuine soft smile that peak the dimples at her cheeks, it is a smile Yennefer has never seen, her heart beats just a little faster, makes the dark coil in her stomach soften into a warm glow that spreads to her chest. 

Then Yennefer zones in on her eyes and the bolt of heat returns and her ears sing at the torrid look she is graced with. 

Tissaia’s eyes have never been so dark, never so heady as she peers from beneath her eyelashes below to where Yennefer still kneels. 

Having the woman be so unbothered by this says many things about Tissaia de Vries. 

Some of them make Yennefer squeeze her own thighs to keep her hands from straying too far. 

She is here for a reason. 

Yennefer swallows, tilts her chin up in challenge at the ethereal woman in front of her and her wanton eyes, she shifts to stand, rising off the floor, her hands catch the skirt of her dress, it is a familiar fabric, one she wore a long time ago. 

At the Ascenion ball. 

Her lips curl up at the thought that this was Tissaia’s personal addition, the revelation makes her warm with familiar confidence. 

She glides up the two steps it takes to get to the chaise and women occupying it, Tissaia’s eyes track her every step. 

She makes the faceless woman disappear with a flick of the wrist. 

The knowing smile this earns her makes her stomach flip, her throat dry. 

“Tissaia de Vries.” She purrs, part in satisfaction at the tongue that peaks past Tissaia’s pink lips. 

“If only I’d known the things you dream of.” It felt like playing with fire, but this _is_ a dream, and Yennefer cannot help it. 

She grabs at her skirt and mounts the dark-eyed, breathy sorceress’ lap, the insides of her thighs fit flush against the woman’s hips and she grins at the sharp inhale. 

Tissaia’s eyes are black, not a hint of blue to them. 

It stirs Yennefer’s desire, makes her chest flush and her cheeks warm, she bites her lip and sighs when Tissaia’s eyes dart down to them. 

“Tell me what you want.” She murmurs thickly, threading the fabric of the woman’s robes between her fingers, the warmth of the skin beneath taunts her. 

Tissaia tilts her head back, Yennefer tracks the slick shine of sweat on the woman’s skin. 

Oh how badly she wants to taste it. 

Taste her. 

“Anything you wish for.” She continues, and her lips lower to that delicate throat that drives her mad with want. 

She brushes the skin, sees the goosebumps rise, tastes the salt and the sweet and hums. 

“Yennefer.” 

Tissaia’s breathy whisper, dark and full of promise makes her thighs clench against the woman’s hips, she rocks forward unbidden and squeezes her eyes momentarily at the sensation of small, strong hands finding purchase along her iliac crest. 

Tissaia’s fingers dig in slightly, and Yennefer can barely stifle a whimper, and all of a sudden the game is turned against her. 

She can feel Tissaia’s chest vibrate with quiet, sensual laughter. And she regains some of her senses with the help of her haggard pride. 

She nips at the side of the woman’s throat, and indulges in the sinful sensation when Tissaia gasps. 

“Your heart’s desire. Tell me, you frustrating, _wonderful_ woman.” The words come flying, unbidden from her lips. 

She soothes the bite with a kiss. 

A noise leaves Tissaia that is just a regal touch away from a whimper, the woman’s stubbornness is both frustrating and arousing. 

Tissaia’s hands drag up her sides with a gentle pressure that makes Yennefer shiver, and immediately has the urge to wipe that uptick of the soreceress’ lip, had her eyes not been the softest clearest blue Yennefer has ever seen. 

Gentle hands curl up her nape and tangle in her hair, Yennefer swallows harshly, shifts on her warm perch. 

Tissaia’s voice is soft, and raw with deep desire that sends a shiver up her spine. 

“If you knew how often I’ve wished to do this, you would be insufferable.” 

And then Yennefer is urged down by lithe fingers threaded in her hair, her heart jumps to her throat as their lips clash and moan falls, unbidden, from her lips. She feels Tissaia smile, and nips at a full bottom lip, pressing in deeper until the sorceress is pressed flush to the chaise beneath her, a hungry Yennefer on top. 

Tissaia is a writhing menace beneath her, tugging her closer, pressing up against the apex of her thigh and the warm heat there. 

Yennefer grinds down in response, breathy and moaning, wisps of hair fall into her face and are chased away by Tissaia’s still so frustratingly gentle hands. 

Which reminds her. 

She snakes her hands into Tissaia’s bun and grabs at the pins there, letting them fall to the floor as she desperately unravels the chignon and braid, silky brown hair spills onto her hands and frames Tissaia’s face like a dark halo as Yennefer pulls back to look. 

Tissaia rests against the cushions on the chaise, eyes dark and lips swollen and wisps of brown hair floating with each deep breath. 

Yennefer is wracked with emotions she cannot decipher, they swell within her. 

Before she can overanalyze them further she surges back in, smiling when Tissaia meets her halfway with the force surprisingly for such a small body. The smell of freesia and honey lull Yennefer into a frenzy, she cannot get enough of it. 

“You frustrating girl.” Tissaia gasps out against her lips. 

Yennefer only grinds down in response into the moving body below her. 

“You drive me mad.” 

She whimpers against the calm eager hands that slowly make their way down her chest, thumbs flick her straining nipples beneath the thick dark fabric of her dress. 

“Do you want this?” Yennefer finds herself nodding desperately, pressing her forehead into the cook of her neck, her eyes are shut. 

She fears the moment she opens her eyes none of this will be real. 

It would break her. 

The same hands flow down to her ankles, encircle them loosely and slowly make their way up her thighs, bunching up the fabric of her dress, they squeeze with a controlled pressure that makes her whine and she squeezes her legs in return, she bucks against a knee that snuck in to press into her aching sex. 

“Fuck.” She whimpers, and Tissaia’s smile curls sinfully against her lips. 

Has she ever compared Tissaia to an ocean? She was terribly mistaken. Tissaia is fire, pure flame, consuming and unyielding. 

Here she is, gasping and grinding, small and so delicately human, she tugs and pulls at Yennefer, demanding another kiss, locks her legs around and between hers so the younger sorceress cannot escape, as if she’d ever want to. 

Yennefer cannot get enough. 

She growls against bruised lips, grasping desperately at the fabric of Tissaia’s robe and shoving it aside roughly, feeling her arch up in response and the press of her breasts, and a completely different kind of weight sinks into the pit of her stomach. 

This isn’t real, this is a dream. 

Tissaia will wake up, and once she finds out what Yennefer has done. She will never forgive her. That night decades ago but so much worse. 

Yennefer groans and pulls away. It takes everything in her to do so. She cannot do this. 

She wants this to be real. 

A terrifying thought. 

Tissaia pulls her back insistently. 

“Tissaia.” 

Yennefer’s voice cracks. 

“Take that dress off.” Tissaia all but growls, and Yennefer cannot get up off the chaise fast enough to undo the bindings. 

Tissaia peers up at her, confused. 

“Stop.” Yennefer’s hands halt. And she would be infuriated at being puppeteered if the dread did swell within her, she cannot speak. 

Tissaia is looking at her with an unreadable expression. 

Her voice grows a harder edge. 

“Sit down.” And Yennefer drops to the chaise. Dreading every moment of it, she slowly raises her head to look back at Tissaia. 

Tissaia’s eyes are clear from their previous desire, Yennefer feels a chill creep up her spine. 

Tissaia’s mind envelops her, traps her like a stone dropped to the bottom of a lake and squeezes harshly. Yennefer reacts, fighting, flailing, pushing against the defenses that seem unsurmountable. 

And suddenly she is wrenched out of the woman’s mind. 

She startles up off her bed, breathing raggedly, her cheeks are wet, she brushes them dry and pretends it is all sweat. Yennefer sits in her bed, staring down at the duvet underneath her, unable to swallow past the lump in her throat and the knowledge of what she had done. Her skin prickles, she feels a surge of chaos just outside her room in the hallway. 

She knows who that chaos belongs to. 

And then her door is flying off its hinges. 


	6. Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yennefer knows pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helloo everybody, thank you for your continued support and your patience. Life's started rolling again and it's not leaving me much time to write, but I wanted to get this out to so you have something to enjoy. This is shorter than my usual chapters but will hopefully give some relief from the cliff hanger last chapter. 
> 
> I will slowly work on the next chapter and publish it when it's ready, no guarantees when that will be. But I hope you enjoy!

When Tissaia storms into the room, Yennefer feels the air in the room thicken as if she is underwater.

She sits up, her chest is flushed with both fear and arousal that she tries to press away between her thighs, chased by the cool wave of fear sliding down her spine.

Tissaia is beautiful, wearing a dressing gown like blue ink, rich and dark, one shoulder slipping down just a tad lower than the other, the hem just slightly less than tidy.

Yennefer rises from the bed, calm on the outside and shaken within.

As if facing the storm head on might spare her.

And as Tissaia steps towards her, she refuses to let her jaw tremble.

“I should have known it. That whole charade. Pathetic as it was.”

Despite it all, because Yennefer is her own worst enemy.

“You seemed to enjoy it.”

Tissaia's voice is thunderous. 

“Be silent!”

Yennefer’s jaw snaps shut so fast her teeth click painfully.

She tilts her chin up regardless, brimming with internal conflict, guilt and shame, fear and fury.

Yennefer grabs hold of the anger with both hands.

Tissaia’s lips curl down, Yennefer sees pale fingers flex and straighten, again and again, in some anxious dance behind a blue sleeve.

The hands still, and her eyes are wrenched up by Tissaia’s voice.

“You like pain.” There was a coolness, a disconnect between the sorceress’ appearance and her voice.

Yennefer says nothing, this is a dance they’ve had before.

But then the older soreceress is stepping towards her again, slowly, deadly. And Yennefer cannot stop her own retreat.

“You surround yourself with it. And consume anything that comes in your path.”

Icy blue eyes, severe lines on a sharp face, shoulders high unyielding to the weight of the world.

“Selfish girl.”

At that, her back hits a cool wall, the chill chases the air from her lungs harshly, or maybe the two pale hands that pin Yennefer do, she stiffens at the dangerous look in Tissaia’s eyes.

When it happens it feels like the stone under her feet is apparated away, and she is left to free fall. Her stomach jerks up into her throat, the air floods out of her lungs once more, and she is left winded and reeling.

And then it is gone, and so are the hands that trap her. Yennefer tips forward momentarily, catching herself with a heaving breath, after a second, she peers from under her hair at the stoic woman who has regained her distance.

Tissaia has never been so unapologetically clinical rifling through her mind.

“Always so curious.”

The smaller woman is looking up at her, a strange smile at the corner of her mouth, Yennefer feels as though she is the one being looked down on.

“You want so badly to know why I’ve tried to keep my distance.” Yennefer is frozen, dazed, and there is a new painful pounding creeping behind her forehead as the Rectoress speaks. “Very well.”

Tissaia is curt, as if it were another lesson. As if Yennefer is still a haunted girl sold by her family.

Maybe that is still all she is, but she is not so helpless now.

Tissaia’s eyes close for just a moment too long, and it emboldens her.

She likes to think her next response would have been sufficiently witty and cutting, but.

“You will ruin me."

And just like that Yennefer’s sails stutter and droop at the softness of Tissaia’s voice, a softness that she has only bore witness to in a dream so frightful and filled with everything Yennefer didn’t know she needed. But the Rectoress does not stop there.

“And, I fear, the rest of the Continent when you do.”

Every reminder that Yennefer can never do the right thing.

She bares her teeth.

“So,” Yennefer says slowly, “I am too dangerous to release from under your thumb, and too dangerous to keep close.” Denying the pull of chaos whispering to obey is a sweet sensation.

Tissaia’s silence pulls a bitter laugh, hallow, like the pit in her stomach. 

“Rectoress, whatever will you do?” She croons. 

Tissaia’s voice is still a whip, but Yennefer is growing numb to the sting.

“You do not get to do that.” The older sorceress snaps, poking a sharp finger under Yennefer’s collarbone and making her step back, Tissaia keeps talking.

“You do not get to call me that after invading my dreams and making me want -”

And the first time in her life, Yennefer witnesses Tissaia start at her own words, the sudden widening of eyes, the tremble at the corner of Tissaia's mouth. A deep part of Yennefer softens, the more dominant part of her cheers and goes to push her advantage.

But even now, Tissaia was above all the best at knocking Yennefer off kilter.

Blue eyes harden, and Yennefer both mourns the loss of their soft oceanic color and relishes in the familiarity of its’ ice.

“Do not pretend you do not make a free market of my mind when it suits you.”

To that, Tissaia stands in silence, ever righteous, unyielding.

Yennefer sighs and falls back against the wall, hoping the cold will ground her.

“It was meant to extract the rest of your wishes from you, Tissaia.” She wraps her lips around the name hesitantly, her stomach rolls against the chaos tightening it's vice around her throat to keep her silent. “I did not expect what I would find.”

And then Tissaia’s waver, frantic fingers pulling down the sleeves of her dress, smoothing a wrinkle that isn't there, the woman stares into her and past her, miles away.

They stay like this for a minute longer and Yennefer looks for answers in the eyes intent on looking past her. Finally, something slots over the rectoress’ expression, her features smooth, her eyes turn their eerie grey.

“You found nothing.” Tissaia says, matter of factly.

Yennefer’s spine stiffens with a chill.

And then Rectoress of Aretuza clasps her hands together and tilts her chin, and as Yennefer watches, her chest pangs with a mysterious longing.

“I once told you, that even if you were a great beauty. Still no one would love you. Do you know why?”

All Yennefer can taste is bile, Tissaia is looking at her now and she is pinned pinned.

“Because pain does not beget love, only more pain.”

Yennefer sighs, unwilling, a rattling breathe compressing her rib cage with the weight of too many emotions to count, to name. Her mouth opens as if to speak again, but Tissaia cuts her off. 

“And since you so badly need my wish, I will oblige. This once.” She whispers softly, deadly. 

And then she turns, Yennefer can only stare at the stiff lines of her shoulders, the sharp collar of her dress.

“I wish you gone, Yennefer. Out of my life.”

Yennefer feels the pull of magic, manically gripping at her consciousness and at her chaos, and she agonizes at the feeling. She fights it, will not leave now, not like this. She feels as if she is almost winning, tugging back at the control over her own chaos. 

Then she sees her, Tissaia. The storm in blue eyes that have always been as still and calm as a deep pool.

Yennefer knows what pain looks like.

She stops fighting and the chaos swallows her with a hiss.

\-------------------

Yennefer collapses onto her knees in a glade of mountain flowers.

A shudder rolls through her, she presses a hand to her trembling mouth, her breathing comes ragged, drowning out the twitter of startled, fleeing skylarks.

She sits there, drags her knuckles back to her thighs, she digs her fingers into the fabric of her dress, she lets her breathe, allows the torrent of emotions to overwhelm.

It tears at the depth of her soul, ugly and painful as it rubs her throat raw. Full of heaving gasps and red, splotchy skin.

But she does not cry, she will not.

She swallows the bile down.

She will not be a sorceress brought low.

Yennefer allows herself to feel, to spend the day in the flower glade amidst her thoughts, feeling adrift, a Nazair ship lost at sea.

She stays there, hunched in the long grass, focused only on the songs of the birds and the hiss of the wildflowers around her.

The sun descends below the horizon and she feels the wind grow cold until her skin erupts in goosebumps, the air on her mouth grows colder and leaches warmth from her lips. She rubs her nose as it goes numb with the chill.

And only then, when the frost begins to gather on her breath, she finally stands.

Her knees creak, her ankles throb with pins and needles, she draws another ragged breath.

With a wave of her hand that turns to a fist she sucks the life out of the flower glade and walks through a portal.

Her path is aimless, she needs a purpose. 

The dragon is a suitable divergence.

The Witcher less so.

When Geralt tells her of the surprise Cintran weddings, and the child surprise he left behind, Yennefer feels a deep, dark loathing curling in her gut.

She knows of another innocent child born to cruel fate, abandoned.

And then, the last glorious blow.

“The sorceress will never regain her womb, and though you do not wish to lose her, Geralt, you will.”

Yennefer is absolutely done with the course of her fate.


	7. To The Roots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finding herself adrift once again, Yennefer has only one place to go - to the resting place of her ghosts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to split this chapter in half because it was getting too long. So the next chapter is coming soon.
> 
> I'm sorry to say Tissaia won't be joining us this chapter, but not to worry, we will see her again. 
> 
> On another note, I've been banging my head against the wall about the timelines of everything and people's ages. So let's just say the dragon was after Rinde but before the fall of Cintra.

She pulls back the reigns in her grip, her bay mare tittering nervously amidst the weeded ruts in the road, worn with use. A cart drives by past her, the rattling of the wheels and clatter of it’s contents is almost soothing. Somewhere, far away, a driver whistles at the horses. The chickens cluck, the ringing of metal of a blacksmith’s forge fills the cool spring air. 

Yennefer bites at her lip, focuses on its’ sting and not at the house in the distance. Nor at the squeal of pigs. 

The smell of a pig farm is not that much worse than that of a crowded city. 

She releases a stirrup and drops into the hard ground, the loose gravel at her feet shifts under her boots, 

The trek to the house, with its chimney billowing smoke and the hacking of an ax in the background. There is a scatter of houses she passes, and the people that peer from their windows, and behind their fences, eye her. Some in curiosity, some in distrust. 

She hears them all; their wishes. They pray for rain, for sun, for a loved one to return home from some useless Aedirnian conflict or another. 

Their desperate hopes fill her head. 

Some so naïve it makes her want to roll her eyes, some desperate, and some crude. 

The whispers grew tiresome a while ago, all Yennefer can do now is let them flit around her mind until they pass on their own. Sometimes she has to shut them out. She is learning. 

She curls her hands tightly in fists, her leather gloves creak under the stress of her grip, the mare paws at the dirt road, seemingly as impatient as Yennefer herself. 

“I know.” Yennefer snaps, then she looks down, her breath escapes her, “I know.” Who would have thought Yennefer of Vengerberg could ever stoop so low as to talk to a horse. 

The witcher has rubbed off on her. 

When she approaches the house this time, with that same upkept fence, and the pigsty, and the smoke-filled chimney. She feels the déjà vu, she grabs onto the rash courage that has brought her here. 

Yennefer has nowhere to go now, no purpose, nothing to anchor her. 

Who would have thought that when Yennefer has nothing, she would choose to return to where her misery began. 

The sound of a bucket thudding against the wooden deck by the pig pen startles her, she looks up and blinks. Looking back at her is a boy, not quite a child anymore, not quite a grown man. Brown hair shaggy just past his ears, peppered stubble on his cheeks. 

“Can I help you milady?” 

Yennefer tilts her head, staring at her nephew, for it is undoubtedly him. 

He scuffs his boot on the floor and fidgets with his belt, peering at her with obvious, but shy interest. 

Her stomach churns, she cannot decide which feeling to grab on to. Yennefer wants to laugh, but also to disappear. 

What is she doing here? 

“Milady?” 

She blinks and he straightens under her sharp glare. “Tend to my horse.” 

And with that Yennefer marches past the fence and ignores the shiver that passes through her as she does so, throwing the reigns in his startled hands as he blinks up at her, brown eyes. Yennefer remembers her mother’s brown eyes. 

“Well?” She arches an eyebrow at him, he gulps, nodding as Yennefer breezes past him and into the house, slipping her gloves off and clenching them in her hand, she can feel his eyes boring into the back of her head. No doubt confused by what presumptuous noblewoman has decided to storm his home. 

As soon as she crosses, she stops short, anchoring herself to the door frame. 

The smell of wet earth and dried herbs assaults her senses, driving her back to a time she does not want to remember. Emilia is sat at the table, near the hearth that Yennefer could curl up and sleep by if she caused no trouble and the weather was bad enough. She could still feel the press of the cold floor against a phantom shoulder, arched and bruised, the stiffness of her arm, the pin pricks in her hip when she woke up. 

Emilia stands up quickly at the intrusion, her eyes, also brown, widen. 

“Can I help you?” Her sister asks incredulously, her eyes dart to the next room and Yennefer knows her husband must be there, tending to something or other. 

Yennefer stares, then, overcome with the ridiculousness of the situation, smiles with no mirth, “I think not.” 

Emilia’s eyes furrow, and Yennefer struggles to not betray the trepidation that has clung to her bones, the sweat in her palms as she digs into the wood of the doorframe, pretending she doesn’t need it to stand upright. 

She palms the grains of the doorframe harder, splinters bite at her fingertips, she looks to the side, then back to her sister. 

“Forgive me.” 

Finally, Yennefer exhales and the weight in her shoulders weigh them down like lead. Her hand slips off the doorframe and she steps into the room fully. Emilia steps back quickly, she is still holding the needle and fabric in her hands, holding them out in front of her. 

“It has been so long since I’ve been here.” Yennefer turns around the room, staring up at the thatched ceiling, the old walls. “I see it’s the same shithole I remember.” 

That wasn’t true of course, she remembers seeing the house as a distant palace filled with warmth and riches, watching the shadows of her family within from her nest of straw, cold and wet and miserable. Wanting so desperately to be welcomed in, to be offered a morsel of that forbidden warmth. 

“Do I know you?” She hears Emilia’s bristling voice behind her. 

Yennefer laughs. 

She turns slowly towards the woman standing as far away from her as possible in the cramped room, the midday sun is streaming from the window and the doorway, Yennefer can see the dust flecks, but she can also see the memories come flying in, unbidden. 

Yennefer hums, then steps forward, only a couple steps away now, she can see her brown eyes better now, she has their mother’s nose, and the same wrinkles between her eyebrows. 

“Explain yourself at once!” 

She allows Emilia’s intent stare, meeting the eyes boring into her steadily, though her heart is racing. 

“Come now, I didn’t think you’d forget me so easily.” 

Yennefer tilts her head and meanders closer to her frozen sister, her heels loud and damning with each step that brought her closer. 

The silence is filled with an incessant trill of a fly buzzing near the ceiling, a hog squeals outside. 

And there, with them standing so close, Yennefer towering over her sister’s aging frame, a flash of recognition strikes her sister’s face, and Emilia covers her mouth. 

“It cannot be.” She whispers past her hands, but Yennefer hears her. Her smile grows more bitter, her mouth tastes sour and suddenly she feels exposed. Ready to fight, ready to flee. 

Then her sister crosses what little space between them and there are two arms trapping her, making Yennefer seize up even more against the sudden warm pressure. 

“Yenna.” 

Yennefer’s teeth click hard in response, her hands are clenched and cramping, and she must feel about as pliant as an oak being hugged, but that does not seem to deter her sister, who holds her tight, there is a chin digging into her stiff shoulder. 

Finally, seemingly receptive to the fact her sister is not as jubilant about the reunion, Yennefer feels Emilia give her one last squeeze and she is free. 

Yennefer immediately takes a step back to safety. 

It does not take too long until whatever joy her sister found at seeing her has turned at some point into a nervous energy. 

Emilia calls for Archistad, Archie, as Yennefer nauseously notes. Who causes a ruckus somewhere out of view and comes striding into the room soon after, all thudding boots and beaming at his wife and casting that same curious but friendly look he had many years ago when she had accosted them the first time and fled. 

“Is this the strange, beautiful woman that has our son in a tizzy?” Yennefer raises an eyebrow, and he chuckles, wiping his hands on a dirtied, tattered cloth he holds. 

“Right, right. Sorry, it is an honor, milady.” He hesitates, eyeing her tailored dress that is absolutely eccentric for an Aedirnian noblewoman. 

Emilia cuts in with a nervous shrill. 

“Archie, this is Yennefer.” 

Archie pauses. 

“My sister.” 

He fidgets at that, brings his hand up to rub at the back of his neck. Much like the boy, Inron had moments earlier. 

“Well, I’ll be damned.” He says gruffly, and yet his face remains kind, it irks her. “I remember you from when I was a boy.” 

The mention of her past self makes her flinch, “Spare me.” 

He coughs, but Emilia is still staring at her with a look that irks Yennefer. 

“I could recognize you anywhere.” Her sister breathes, stepping close and clasping Yennefer’s unwilling hands tight in her own, Yennefer allows it, though the touch burns. 

“Your eyes, there are none like them.” Her sister whispers with searching eyes of her own, Yennefer can barely keep the distaste from her face at the gleaming water in them. 

Her sister looks down at the ground, her mouth is pursed. “I thought.” Her sister begins, and Yennefer frowns at her. “I thought you were dead.” 

How does one reply to that? 

“Haven’t had the pleasure.” Yennefer says drily. 

A pause reigns, bodies shift uncomfortably. 

Archistad clasps his hands loud and makes both women startle, “Well. This is something to celebrate, Em, love, get some tea ready. I’ll get Irnon to the baker and we will talk.” 

He approaches them and places a hand to Emilia’s back, making her sister smile sweetly, Yennefer must stifle the wave of emotion that blooms at the sight. 

Then he turns to her, and his piercing look makes Yennefer tilt her chin up. 

“I’m sure you have a long story to tell.” 

The night goes about as awkward as expected. She finds herself seated at an old wooden table weathered with use, the edge sanded with a thousand elbows, eating from plates scraped a million times. 

It was becoming frustratingly obvious that she has fallen into a two crown romance novel after all, watching Archistad and her sister interact. He was attentive but not too overbearing, both kind and quick of wit, and with that careless aura of a man who’s come from a simple life where one reaps what they sow. 

He reminds her of who Istredd used to be, Yennefer realizes with a gnawing nausea as she moves her food around the plate. 

When she tells them of Aretuza, Emilia grips at the tabletop a little tighter and Yennefer can see the whites on her knuckles. Archistad blinks but betrays nothing else and continues his jovial line of inquiry. Her nephew sits quiet through it all. 

Yennefer can sense it of course, his wants. All their half-baked wishes. But as loud and clear as they ring in her head, she cannot make sense of them. 

Reading them was not as clear as reading a certain Rectoress, and those wants were as hidden as a dark room with no candlelight. 

Images haunt her, of swollen lips and dark blue eyes stark and burning into her. 

“Can you get someone to fancy you?” Irnon draws her from her thoughts, what a peculiar boy. 

“Irnon.” His father rubs his face tiredly, but otherwise seems resigned. 

She raises an eyebrow at her nephew, who is looking at her form under his shaggy hair, nervous brown eyes pointing her way. He stares back accusingly at his father and then back to her. 

“Old Gertrude says witches can make anyone fancy them.” 

She can feel her mouth twitch, it was hard not to laugh, she is sure that is not all old Gertrude says about mages and witches and magic. How kind of her nephew to put it so delicately. 

She leans back in her seat. "There's nothing to it really.” 

She can sense Emilia gracing her with a hesitant glare, the motherly side conflicting with the other who has just discovered her elder sister was alive and in her home. 

“All a man needs is power, all a woman needs is beauty. And the rest - “ 

“Can be discussed when you’re older.” Emilia steps in hastily, shooting Yennefer a reproachful look. 

Yennefer does not bother to reign in her smirk, but she rests her hands on her knees lithely and soaks in the discomfort around the table like a steaming hot bath. 

Inrun has shrunk into his seat under the topic, or perhaps his mother’s glare. Archistad was wolfing down the food as if nothing else mattered in the world, seemingly deciding this was certainly not the time to interfere. 

Yennefer almost smiles. 

Maybe this wasn’t such a terrible mistake, to come here. 

The thought tangled another knot in her stomach and she looks down. The rest of the dinner passes in relative silence. 

All considering, Yennefer is not quite sure how Emilia has roped her into this, kneeling on the ground, clearing out the weeds of early spring before their roots can regrow and strangle the soil. The garden stayed mostly the same in the decades she has been gone, when their mother tended to it. 

It was always more pleasant, her stepfather never cared much about it, and her mother was much kinder without his presence. 

The phantoms of memories, less physical and more memory of feeling, of being, are an unpleasant addition to the hot spring sun hailing the arrival of summer. 

Doubly so, was the unpleasantness of the current conversation. 

“He was a nasty man, but in the end my stubbornness won out, he taught me how to keep the farm for when he passes, never getting the son he badly wanted, and grew too old himself.” 

Yennefer listens stiffly. 

Then Emilia pauses, and Yennefer can hear the new hesitance in her voice as she pinches at the weeds harshly. 

“But.” Her sister pauses, and Yennefer slows her attack on the greenery under her sister’s eyes. 

“I remember, Yenna.” 

Yennefer throws the weeds to the side, rising from her knees stiffly and ignoring the stains on her dress, the smell of the earth grounded her, though her chaos churned with anxious energy. 

“Father was proud.” She finally bit out, looking up to the blue sky, she could not find a cloud. 

Emilia’s silence stabbed at her, so more words come unbidden from Yennefer’s lips. 

“Too proud for a hunchback daughter.” 

She hears Emilia sigh, but the wrinkled woman does not disagree. 

“Pride made him terrible and cruel.” 

Yennefer looks down, watches her sister pick at her hands, the gesture seems so familiar it hurts. She goes back to work. 

“When the storms came and he had no money to patch the barn roof, I feared the creak of the floor would send him into a rage.” Emilia murmurs beside her, Yennefer’s clutches at the cool dirt tightly, feeling each grain, a numbness grows. 

But Emilia continues. 

“Archie hated how he treated me,” Her sister laughs ruefully, but Yennefer cannot bear to look at her. “So he’d come to help, father hated it at first, asking for help.” 

Yennefer finally looks to her again, and Emilia is looking up at the barn to their back, and Yennefer feels compelled to turn as well. They observed the timber frame of the house, worn and discolored but skillfully bound. 

“Felt Archie had swindled him of his pride, thought him unable to take care of his own farm. But, Archie kept coming, he kept helping, if only because it’d make father less likely to lash out at us for a change. Eventually, he’d grown to love him like a son. That ass of a man.” 

Yennefer swallows. 

“Why did he do it?” 

Emilia frowns, then makes a show of grabbing at her knees, reaching up to Yennefer with a weathered hand. 

“Help an old woman up would you?” 

Yennefer does, helping her up awkwardly as her sister huffs. Stepping back as soon as Emilia is standing. 

Emilia looks back at her, the wrinkles around her eyes soften and Yennefer feels a tug somewhere in her chest. For a moment it was the ghost of her mother looking at her. 

“When you care for someone deeply, it is simply what you do.” 

Yennefer stares down at the dirt staining the creases of her own hands, then it is her turn to scoff. 

“And so the bullshit starts.” 

“Yen.” It makes her look up for a moment, Emilia is looking at her thoughtfully, sadly. 

Yennefer looks away, but Emilia clasps her hand again gently. 

She has half the mind to rip her hand out of the grasp, but the fingers there squeeze her, warm and firm, it makes Yennefer’s gut churn. 

Hurt blue eyes swim into view of her mind’s eye. 

“You want me to forgive him?” 

“Some people don’t deserve forgiveness, but Yen. That was not all he was.” 

“That was all he was to me.” She snarls, ripping her hand away, Emilia lets go obligingly. 

Her sister will never understand what she had to endure under that man. 

“Never too late to make amends.” 

Oh, bloody gods. “The only thing I would amend is how he passed. If only I could have thrown him to the pigs.” 

Her sister bristles, and Yennefer readies for a fight, but to her surprise it does not come. Instead, Emilia draws herself up and continues clearing the soil. 

Birds chirp around them, wood is chopped somewhere far, but the sound travels and fills their silence. 

Eventually, Yennefer leans back down and follows her sister. The act still felt ridiculous, she was a mage. But the repetitiveness of it was distracting enough to the cacophony of voices whispering in the back of her mind, praying for rain, for their husband to come home sober, for their son to survive his sickness. 

Yennefer brings a shaky hand up and pinches the bridge of her nose, hard. 

The silence reigns for several moments, Yennefer fights the chaos in her head. Until Emilia breaks the silence again. 

“What’s it about anyway?” 

Yennefer drops her hand and stares into nothingness, glares into it, really. 

She hears Emilia sigh, “Maybe I’ve no right to ask, but let me be a sister to you. I cannot get back the decades we have missed, but. “ 

Yennefer stares up at the sun, clenches her hands at her sides. She senses no trick in her sister’s thoughts. 

“I’m technically the elder one here, you should be coming to me for advice.” 

She hears Emilia chuckle but does not look her away, not even when her sister speaks ruefully, “That may be so, but my crows’ feet are deeper than yours, so that is a post I must fill, I'm afraid.” 

Her chin drops, and her lip grows fuller, less thin. 

“I,” Is she actually doing this? 

“I did something quite wretched. It seemed only fair and just, but.” Yennefer sighs, tilting her chin up. “It’s complicated.” 

Her sister hums in response, “It’s not an ex-lover is it?” 

At Yennefer’s uncertain silence, Emilia brightens. “Oh? Do tell!” 

Yennefer breathes out harshly. “It’s not - “She cuts off, then she drops her shoulders. 

She got herself into this, hadn’t she? 

“She, she has known me through it all.” The words come out rawer than she expected, as nails bite into the flesh of her palms. “And worse yet, I have begun to know her.” 

At this point she is shredding grass into a hundred small green fibers. Emilia has the grace not to comment. 

“She is stubborn; she does not bend her principles. And,” 

“And I don’t trust her,” She bites out the last part harsher than the rest 

Merciful silence. Yennefer continues, emboldened. 

“Because the right thing may come at terrible cost and she would / _still_ / do it she was to find it necessary.” 

“She does not sound like a pleasant woman.” Silence, then. “She’s not a leader of some cult, is she?” 

The question takes her so aback Yennefer laughs. 

“She is terribly frustrating.” She admits, stifling the chuckle. “But no.” A pause. “Well, maybe.” 

Emilia scoffs disbelievingly, Yennefer’s lip quirks up and she shakes her head, continuing despite herself. 

“But she is good,” It had taken her a long time to admit this to herself. “And she saved me.” She continues quietly, barely above a whisper. 

“And she never gave up on me despite the chaos I’ve tethered to me-” Her voice breaks off then. / _Until now/_

A hammer could be heard beating on an anvil echoing across the valley, a donkey baying. The ridiculousness of it all. 

Emilia sits with her in amidst the clamor, and Yennefer grows warmer at the thought she can finally talk about this to someone, and then that warmth twists knots in her diaphragm and drowns her. 

Blessed Emilia distracts her again. 

“People can surprise us.” 

Yennefer raises an eyebrow in question, so her sister clarifies, sitting back and brushing off dirt from her dress. 

“Are you so sure it’s a lost cause?” 

“Yes.” The word leaves a burning in her throat, _I wish you gone, out of my life._

Emilia looks at her meaningfully, and Yennefer fists her hands so harshly her knuckles ache. Seemingly unperturbed by this, her sister persists. 

“The people we love forgive us, and we forgive them.” 

The word makes Yennefer wheeze, “This is.” She is shaky, clenching her hands tightly into fists. “Not that.” 

The spot behind her ribs tightens painfully. 

“And there is no forgiveness.” Not in this world, not for her. 

She hears the crunch of ground on worn boots as Emilia sits back and Yennefer knows she is being watched closely. 

She shifts under the intensity of Emilia’s searching. 

“Alright.” Her sister finally concedes. There are volumes left unsaid between them, but for now it seems, the silence is enough. 

Yennefer goes back to work, thinks the worst is past when a comforting arm is thrown around her shoulder. 

Startled, she forgets to fight as her sister pulls her close, instead the pressure squeezes out a huff of complaint as Yennefer has to bend to the side uncomfortably. The rough fabric of her sister’s wool dress rubs harshly on her face and presses the ridge of her nose. 

That old woman can be spry when she wants to be, Yennefer will remember this the next time her sister needs help. 

Still, sedated by the suddenness of it, she doesn’t have the heart to pull away and waits for the torture to be over. 

But Emilia seems in no rush to end this cruel and unusual punishment, the arms that wrap around her are firm but gentle, a veteran of a thousand motherly comforts, no doubt. At the thought, the touch feels even more foreign. 

It stirs something within her, and to her horror, she feels the burning gather behind her eyes, the traitors, the wetness gathers at her eyelashes and trails down her nose and into woolly fabric at the warm shoulder. 

Her sister’s grip on her tightens. 

Despite it all, Yennefer does not find it in herself to withdraw, and so there they sit for a while, in the garden behind the house, the sound of pigs rummaging in the background, the smell of the earth and the pinch of packed dirt under her fingernails. A long-forgotten dream re-imagined, an alternate ending moves and slots in somewhere within her. 

And then, somewhere in that silence, Yennefer takes the longest exhale of her life, sagging into the warmth. Somewhere inside her, a knot loosens, slips free. 

And she feels like she can finally breathe. 

Eventually she has to draw the line on this nonsense, and she disentangles herself slowly, and channels her chaos with a shift of her hand. The ground is tilled, the weeds are gone. Her mouth twitches at her sister’s look of disbelief. 

\---- 

It doesn’t take long for Yennefer to figure out her nephew’s question at dinner. 

They are walking back to the front of the house, rounding the fence with the hogs that Yennefer still eyes in distaste. 

“Oh that boy.” 

She sees Inron jogging up the road, grinning ear to ear in that way that only young men can, feeling on top of it all and above it all. She has seen that looks thousands of times, when Virfuril’s guards would shirk from their watch. 

Often times when Yennefer herself had sent them off from her chambers. 

“He’s been fancying Cravil’s daughter, do you remember his father?” Yennefer does, unfortunately, remember him. From the corner of her eye, she sees Emilia cross her arms ruefully, watching her son. “That hasn’t stopped him yet, stubborn boy.” 

“He’ll find another fancy soon enough.” She says drily, 

Emilia hums thoughtfully, they stand side by side for a while. 

Then, “You should stay for the May Night, Yen.” 

That draws out a frown, “I cannot think of a worse way to spend my time.” 

“Yenna.” 

Yennefer crosses her arms, ignoring her. But Emilia keeps persisting, turning back to her. 

“It would mean a lot to have you here, with us, your family. Light a candle with us, let us break bread and watch the bonfires, and celebrate the coming of summer together.” 

She has planned to stay for a handful of days, to bid farewell to the ghosts of her past and soothe the aching that has been gnawing away at her throughout her many lifetimes. 

Not this, this was not part of the plan. 

“It is what mother would have wanted.” Yennefer thought herself above caring, she truly did. She remembers how weakly her mother fought for her to stay, to keep her from -. 

Yennefer scowls. 

“No.” 

“Yen.” 

She turns to glare at Emilia, who sighs and raises her hands in placation. “Alright, well, if you change your mind.” Her sister eyes her meaningfully, and then pulls the wool shawl around her shoulders tighter to herself, and turns away to amble up the steps to the door. 

Yennefer tucks her hands even tighter to her like a shield, the breeze is cool and the sun nears the horizon. 

_Out of my life._

She follows her sister inside, the wooden boards murmuring underneath her. 

\---- 

It is odd to watch normal life happen in front of her, oh so mind-numbingly tedious and plain. It is hard to believe this was, at one time, her dream. 

Inron is stacking wood at the hearth as Emilia prepares to make porridge, the boy’s lip bit in concentration as he mumbles gruffly in that way only young men still unused to their own manhood do. 

“I don’t know what to get her.” 

“Why don’t you get her flowers? There’s some daisies growing in the meadow.” 

The thought makes her heart hammer, “Not daisies.” They both startle when she speaks up. 

Irnon fidgets, Emilia sifts through the grains in the bowl, the crackle of the fire hangs in the air. 

Yennefer wets her lips, looks to the side and sighs. She can feel the boy’s sadness, his longing, a part of her is repulsed by it and the other pangs alongside it. 

It was a half-formed thought that made her reach out her hand and summon her chaos, and unbidden, an array of stems expanded above her hand, the twine up and deep green leaves perk out and stretch. Up and up the stems rose until red petals bloomed and gathered together. 

Yennefer knows these roses would be the envy of any royal groundskeeper, as her sister gasped at the sight and the boy blinked wildly. 

“See that you don’t bruise them, and they will last until the dawn of Belleteyn.” 

Inron walks up dazedly, and bunches the flowers in his hands, both as if he were holding a freshly hatched chick and as if he had just caught a fish that was about to flail away. 

“What happens after Belleteyn?” Inron asks quietly, watching the red buds with both fear and hope. 

“They die.” 

“Oh.” He tucks his chin in, “Thank you.” Yennefer jerks her chin quickly, this has crept up on her now and she struggled not to fidget in awkwardness. 

A responding annoyance flares up inside her, she thinks of another life, another awkward child holding white flowers and hoping so desperately for something. “Is this gift not to your standards” She asks him, a dangerous glint in her eye. 

Inron’s eyes widen, “No, no – I" He stutters. 

“It’s just.” 

Silence, Yennefer sits back in her chair, the back digs into her shoulder blades as she appraises her nephew. 

“It’s just that, I don’t think I could ever give her something as nice as this.” He mumbles. 

“No, probably not.” Yennefer agrees, and stands finally, taking some steps back from them all. 

They get interrupted by Archistad walking through the doorway, covered in splinters and smelling of pine sap, taking off his weathered pigskin gloves. He eyes them all, and then the flowers in his son’s unsure hands. 

Then he grins, making Yennefer frown. 

“But what are riches to lovely ladies but the expected trinkets they are used to?” 

Emilia jumps in that Archistad never needed grand gestures to win her heart, that he started helping out around the farm when their parents grew sick. And that he would often bring them game from his hunts. 

Archistad agrees approaches his wife, “It was time, and care that drew your mother and I together in the end. These are beautiful flowers, son, and she will love them I am sure. But what are flowers compared to someone you can laugh with, enjoy life with, who lessens your burdens and stays to hold you when the storms come through?” Emilia laughs and swats her husband on the shoulder at his lopsided grin. 

How nauseating. 

“Do I have to wait for bad weather? What do I do? She will be at the festival, what should I say? What should I -?” He flails his hands and drops them suddenly, defeated by the overwhelming task of getting a girl to like him. 

Bloody gods. 

A quick glare his way reminds him of the flowers, which he quickly rights with a sheepish grin that she just knows he learned from his father. 

She glowers and rubs her face with her hands, why is she here again? 

Yennefer has half the mind to summon a portal and leave this confusing, awkward, terrible mess. She can heard her sister and her husband talking as if they were a league away. 

She does not belong here. 

And yet, Yennefer can feel it of course and it anchors her; _I want to be wanted, to be needed, to be noticed_ and though a part of her loathes it, another part of her flares up like the dragging of a nail at an old scar. That’s the only explanation for her speaking up at all. 

“Dance.” It falls unbidden from her lips. 

It makes Irnon look up, so she continues, knowing the two other people in the room have stopped talking as well. 

“Give her a dance.” 

Inron’s hopeful eyes dim, and he scuffs at the floor with a boot. 

“I don’t know how.” 

Yennefer raises an eyebrow, “Well then, you are fortunate to have someone who can teach you.” 

That draws his eyes up again, but not just his, and Yennefer can feel Emilia watching her. 

His boyish grin makes her frown, but she finds there is no venom behind it, and her shoulders soften at the matching smile coming from her sister.

The pressure behind her breastbone simmers lower, she breathes in deep. 


End file.
